How To Become A Patient Partner: What It Is and Career Path

What is a patient partner and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a patient partner. For example, did you know that they make an average of $18.78 an hour? That's $39,057 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -4% and produce -105,300 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScorePatient PartnerUS Average

Salary

3.1

Avg. Salary $39,057

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.3

Growth rate -4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

8.7

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.66%

Asian 7.24%

Black or African American 9.23%

Hispanic or Latino 13.44%

Unknown 5.14%

White 64.29%

Gender

female 81.43%

male 18.57%

Age - 39

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 39

Stress level

8.3

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.6

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.5

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a patient partner

Explore patient partner education requirements

Most common patient partner degrees

Bachelor's

46.1 %

Associate

19.1 %

High School Diploma

12.4 %

Start to develop specific patient partner skills

Skills	Percentages
Patients	49.65%
Epic	8.84%
CPR	6.68%
HIPAA	6.61%
Hippa	5.71%

Complete relevant patient partner training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New patient partners learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a patient partner based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real patient partner resumes.

Research patient partner duties and responsibilities

Communicate with insurance companies on a continuous basis to ensure hospital reimbursement and attain authorization for home and rehabilitation services.
Verify and confirm CPT codes for correct sleep study, verify that the referral and scripts are sign.
Collaborate with health care team (s) provide concurrent review and identify ICD-9 and CPT billing codes.
Listen carefully for key concerns of patients and respond accordingly.

Apply for patient partner jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a patient partner job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do patient partners rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Patient partner reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Jan 2020

Pros

Putting that patient/customet first and directing (directions) that person to their Doctors office and setting or cancelling their appointments, just helping people.