Physician Assistant Salary in Ohio 2026,
$132,090 Median | BLS Data by City

Ohio physician assistants earn a median $132,090 a year, $63.51 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $109,780 and $150,000 and a full range of $96,460 to $210,350. That is 2.8% below the $135,880 national median, but the Ohio upper tail is among the longest in the country.

Dayton-Kettering-Beavercreek at $138,400, then Columbus at $137,550, Cleveland at $135,860, Toledo at $131,730 and Akron at $130,980. Dayton's lead reflects a concentration of military, veterans and regional health system demand against a comparatively small local PA workforce.

In two steps. The State Medical Board of Ohio — the same board that licenses physicians — issues the physician assistant licence after an accredited programme and the PANCE, with practice under a supervision agreement. Prescriptive authority is separate: Ohio requires a certificate to prescribe, with its own coursework and an initial supervised prescribing period. Both are needed for most clinical roles, and the second step is easy to underestimate when planning a move to Ohio.

Ohio's state income tax is a flat 2.75% in 2026, with roughly the first twenty-six thousand dollars of taxable income exempt — very low by national standards. Most Ohio cities add a municipal income tax of 1% to 2.5%, with Columbus, Cleveland and Akron at 2.5%, generally levied where you work. At the median of $132,090 the combined burden is still substantially below a graduated-rate state at the same income.

Surgical and procedural practice in academic medical centres. Ohio has an unusually strong concentration of academic surgery — cardiothoracic, transplant, neurosurgery and orthopaedics across the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati systems — and PAs in those service lines work heavy call, first-assist in theatre and manage complex post-operative care. That work pays far above general PA practice, which is why the gap between the $150,000 seventy-fifth percentile and the $210,350 ninetieth is so wide.

Because it contains two professions. Primary care, urgent care and clinic-based PA practice fills the $96,460 to $132,090 region and behaves like a national market. Surgical, interventional and transplant PA practice in Ohio's academic centres fills the $150,000 to $210,350 region and behaves like a scarce speciality market. There is comparatively little in between, which is why the median sits closer to the lower group and the ninetieth percentile so far above it.

The Ohio sample is about 4,900 physician assistants and the occupation pools specialties with materially different markets, so the median describes no particular job well. Call pay, first-assist fees and productivity bonuses are also excluded from the wage figure, and in the surgical service lines those are a substantial part of compensation. Read the $109,780 twenty-fifth percentile as the clinic floor and the $150,000 seventy-fifth as the specialty marker.

Service line and call, then the prescribing certificate. Surgical first assisting, interventional cardiology, transplant and neurosurgery service lines pay well above primary care, and the difference widens with call obligations. Hospital medicine carries shift differentials. And the State Medical Board certificate to prescribe is a practical prerequisite for most roles above entry level — a PA without it is limited in what a supervision agreement can usefully cover.