Jobs / Healthcare / 29-9092.00
Genetic Counselors
Assess individual or family risk for a variety of inherited conditions, such as genetic disorders and birth defects. Provide information to other healthcare providers or to individuals and families concerned with the risk of inherited conditions. Advise individuals and families to support informed decisionmaking and coping methods for those at risk. May help conduct research related to genetic conditions or genetic counseling.
- US jobs
- 3,740
- Median wage
- $100,040 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of genetic counselors?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Provide counseling to patient and family members by providing information, education, or reassurance.
- Analyze genetic information to identify patients or families at risk for specific disorders or syndromes.
- Provide genetic counseling in specified areas of clinical genetics, such as obstetrics, pediatrics, oncology and neurology.
- Discuss testing options and the associated risks, benefits and limitations with patients and families to assist them in making informed decisions.
- Interview patients or review medical records to obtain comprehensive patient or family medical histories, and document findings.
- Provide patients with information about the inheritance of conditions such as cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and various forms of cancer.
- Interpret laboratory results and communicate findings to patients or physicians.
- Write detailed consultation reports to provide information on complex genetic concepts to patients or referring physicians.
- Read current literature, talk with colleagues, or participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in genetics.
- Assess patients' psychological or emotional needs, such as those relating to stress, fear of test results, financial issues, and marital conflicts to make referral recommendations or assist patients in managing test outcomes.
- Determine or coordinate treatment plans by requesting laboratory services, reviewing genetics or counseling literature, and considering histories or diagnostic data.
- Explain diagnostic procedures such as chorionic villus sampling (CVS), ultrasound, fetal blood sampling, and amniocentesis.
Other job titles for this occupation (18)
Cardiovascular Genetics Counselor · Certified Genetic Counselor (CGC) · Clinical Genetic Counselor · Genetic Services Coordinator · Hereditary Cancer Program Coordinator · Lab Genetic Counselor (Laboratory Genetic Counselor) · Medical Science Liaison · Pediatric Genetics Clinical Coordinator · Prenatal Genetic Counselor · Reproductive Genetic Counseling Coordinator · Cancer Genetic Counselor · Cancer Program Consultant · Chromosomal Disorders Counselor · Clinical Reviewer · Genetic Coordinator · Genetic Counseling Medical Specialist · Mitochondrial Disorders Counselor · Pediatric Genetic Counselor