Comparing The Phlebotomist Salary Based On Various Factors
Is the phlebotomist salary in your area among the highest nationwide? How much effect does it have on your pay where you live? It's a fact of life that where you reside has a lot of bearing on how much you earn, whatever profession you're in.
It does make a difference if you're working in the health care industry because of the growth potential of careers. Medical and health care services are on the rise and more professionals are needed to fill the demand for phlebotomy technician jobs as well as other allied health care careers.
A phlebotomist is an essential part of the medical team, whether you work in a big or small organization. One important mode of diagnosing diseases is through blood testing. And to accomplish this you need an expert who can extract blood samples efficiently and accurately. That's the phlebotomist.
No. 1 factor: The workplace
Yes, they are mostly employed in hospitals, clinical laboratories, and other medical facilities but there are traveling phlebotomists who are assigned to different areas to do what they do best: collect blood. If you are in this category, you will sometimes be working 60-hour weeks but those additional hours can make a $10,000 to $15,000 difference in your annual pay.
As a general rule, the bigger your organization and the more people employed there, the higher the salaries offered to its workers. Private clinics are likely to offer less in compensation, but this will not be lower than the $11 to $15 hourly rate for the average phlebotomist salary.
No. 2 factor: Work experience
Of course you expect to get paid more the longer you have been on the job. And phlebotomists are no exception. For an entry level position, you can expect to be making $10.50 an hour. That means less than a year of experience. Log in the hours and you can hope to earn more, even reaching the $40,000 range with at least 20 years of experience. And yes, there are phlebotomy technicians who have been at it for that long, although they have upgraded their skills to perform other technician jobs. No. 3 factor: Education and certification
Blood extracting is not something you can learn on-the-job without a medical background. And even then, not all who have medical training can draw blood from another person. It takes hours of phlebotomy training and practice to get the technique right and to make the experience as painless as possible. So where you learned your skills is important, and how much clinical training your education exposed you to.
A phlebotomy certification is not a necessary requirement to practice, except in two states. But employers are becoming picky and would rather choose certified phlebotomists over those without them. It's understandable given how sensitive the procedure is and the skills needed to perfect the needle technique, especially when dealing with cases involving infants and geriatrics. You are certainly guaranteed your phlebotomist salary will be in the higher range with a certification. No. 4 factor: Specializations and multi-skills
Blood extraction is not the same for a normal adult and a baby. It's not even similar if the patient you're dealing with has a thing against needles. If you've done the trickiest extractions, and that's usually with an infant whose veins are so fine and mobile, they say you can do any kind of extraction.
Many phlebotomists have diversified their skills over time. This means learning the skills of an EKG technician, lab supervisors or even office managers. Or you can even pursue further studies like nursing, which is a logical step if you've been in the business so long. With several skills, you can definitely find better paying opportunities.
No. 5 factor: Location
The state where you work is another important consideration in your phlebotomist salary. And if you live in the city will also impact how much you earn. Consider the median phlebotomist salary range by state:
New York - $29,176 to $40,000
California - $24,505 to $31,742
Texas - $23,537 to $33,539
Illinois - $24,335 to $39,677
Florida - $23,964 to $34,770
Georgia - $22,949 to $31,642
North Carolina - $24,528 to $34,382
In these areas the salary difference between the lowest and highest range is around $10,500 except for Illinois where it is $13,000. California has the smallest difference in pay scale.
It's also a different story when comparing pay ranges among cities but Chicago, Illinois still pays the highest. But the picture is clear that while there is a national median salary for this profession, where you live and work will spell the difference in the wages you earn.
Still in all, the phlebotomist salary is generally higher than other occupations both in and out of the healthcare industry.
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