Career Choices in Health Administration

Salary data accessed 11/5/2020

You’ll notice that many of these positions are accessible from a variety of different educational backgrounds. But the level of degree is not the only consideration; you’ll also need to consider the specialization of the program.

Which Health Administration Career Option Is Right For Me?

We have already dumped a lot of information on you about healthcare education and careers. But information doesn’t make the decision for you. Although there are very real calculations you will have to make before deciding on a degree program you can afford, the most important decisions have to do with where your interests are and what you enjoy doing from day-to-day on the job.

This table gives you some idea of the level of education you need for different career paths, but also some of those key features that weave the fabric of your daily experience in each of those roles:

To a great extent, it all comes down to focus and setting. You’ll choose among these depending on your preparation and personality. Is working directly with patients more your style? Or does supporting doctors and nurses line up better with your interests? You want to spend your days in a big, busy hospital, or a small neighborhood clinic where you get to know all your regular patients? Or do you enjoy working behind the scenes, crunching the numbers and making big decisions that will influence how millions of dollars in resources are allocated and helping thousands or people who will never even know you exist?

Healthcare Administration Focus Areas

Patient Focus: These roles operate in management closer to where the action happens in patient care settings. Administrators here may or may not have a lot of direct patient contact, but they do spend most of their time considering operational details that have a lot of impact on the patient experience and treatment outcomes.

That includes keeping up with the latest developments in treatment and making sure facilities have the necessary equipment and supplies. During the pandemic, patient-facing healthcare administrators were working overtime to overcome shortages in 29 of the 40 basic drugs used in COVID-19 treatment, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research, as well as undertaking crash programs to expand ICU bed capacity in places like fairgrounds and sport stadiums.

In less chaotic times, these admins spend their days reviewing paperwork on outcomes, overseeing deep-cleaning and infection control processes, and coordinating with emergency medical services and other facilities for patient transfers and treatment. They also take care of more basic considerations in patient care, like feeding, intake and discharge paperwork handling, and essential physical plant considerations like heating and cooling systems. Regulatory compliance is also a big focus in patient treatment, so these executives have to stay up-to-date on requirements and monitor their facilities to make sure all processes are in line.

Employee: Staffing and labor relations are the big daily concerns for administrators with this focus. In an industry that is expected to see a shortage of as many as 45,000 primary care providers by 2030 according to estimates from the American College of Physicians, recruiting and retention are a constant concern in these roles. Employee-focused admins draw up schedules, deal with time-off requests, handle training considerations like bringing in continuing education seminars and speakers to keep staff up on the latest information in their respective fields.

They are the ones responsible for making basic work assignments from day-to-day, deciding which staff are the right fit for certain assignments, and following up to make sure the job has been done and done properly. They also field requests from staff to deal with everything from pay raise requests to new equipment or operating procedure changes.

All of this adds up to spending a lot of face time with both direct reports and other managers in the organization. Networking and recruiting efforts are also high on the list to help keep staffing levels up and bring in the best people for the jobs at hand.

Finance: Finance-focused executives and administrators spend much of their time staring at spreadsheets and billing forms. They may ensure that documentation is in order to comply with billing procedures from insurance companies, or they may be on the other end of that, at insurance companies themselves, evaluating and approving or rejecting charges.

Budgeting is important in all aspects of healthcare, where a lot of money is floating around but margins may be tight. Finance professionals help forecast demand and income, and work with other managers to build out realistic budgets to make sure everything adds up.

The finance team is also sometimes the bearer of bad news; when the state of Tennessee converted its Medicaid program over to a managed care model, St. Joseph Hospital and Healthcare Centers found it had to cut expenditures by $8 million year-over-year. Working with consultants, the financial team worked out how to break that down into layoffs resulting in $6 million in savings, dropping 162 jobs in the process.

Other (Research, Data, Lab): These roles represent the more technical side of healthcare administrative work. They may not involve any supervisory work at all; instead, the focus could be on developing reports and data collection procedures in an informatics position, or conducting large-scale surveys of the public or medical providers to gather information for public health policy development.

This is a grab-bag of jobs that may not have a lot in common, but also don’t necessarily have a lot in common with other focus areas. An epidemiology administrator, for example, can expect to work a lot with other public health officials and agencies, and maybe even act as the public face of their organization to the media. A testing facility manager, on the other hand, might not see much more than machinery on many days, and spend more time writing and reading reports than talking with people.

Healthcare Administration Work Settings

Large Facility (hospital or care center): Big facilities tend to mean more specialization for healthcare administrators. You are likely to have concerns that are fairly narrowly defined within the department you manage, and your daily tasks can vary a lot depending on what department that is… an oncology department supervisor will have a very different day than the housekeeping manager.

Big facilities also tend to have more rules, which is a mixed bag for administrators. On the one hand, that’s more administration work, with more job security. On the other hand, it will sometimes keep you in a pretty narrow lane, working with mostly the same people day in and day out on a fairly specific number of tasks.

Small Facility (clinic or physician’s office): In small offices, on the other hand, you’ll find that you have more flexibility and often more authority. You’ll get a chance to stick your nose into almost every aspect of running the facility, and get to know the staff more directly and informally.

Small facility administrators may not have all the resource or professional glitz that goes along with big hospital jobs. And because they shoulder more of the load, it can be a high-stress position with few other professionals to lean on in crunch time.

Other (office, lab, or remote): Administrators who work at independent labs, government agencies, or non-profits are more likely to spend their days in a typical office environment. Some, however, can spend a lot of time out on the road, visiting other healthcare facilities or companies. And of course research and lab settings offer a very different environment, with tools and technology in the foreground, it’s generally a more hands-on setting.

Consultants can find themselves working in any and all of the above settings in the course of their daily work, an excellent choice for anyone who doesn’t really want to make a choice… you can get a little bit of everything in such positions.

And many administrative professionals who work in advocacy or policy shops will spend some part of their time in legislative settings, working with lawmakers and their staff on all kinds of healthcare matters.

The Core Functions That Health Administrators Handle

Although you’ll find some of these emphasized more or less in different specializations and focus areas, almost every healthcare administrator engages in a number of similar tasks to a greater or lesser degree:

Finance – Administrators almost always need to be concerned about money. Whether it’s basic management of co-payments or developing budgets for multi-million dollar capital projects, you can expect to spend a fair amount of time with your nose buried in Excel spreadsheets in just about every healthcare management career.

Human Resource Management – Some careers do not involve direct  supervision of staff, but most healthcare administrators will have some responsibility for overseeing subordinates at some point. Basic HR tasks like managing sick leave, recommending raises, counseling problematic employees, and other jobs will be on your plate.

Communication and Public Relations – Similarly, some administrators don’t ever have to deal with the public. But communications tasks are integral to good management, whether you spend your time coordinating with local media outlets or just staying on the same page as other department heads.

Regulatory Compliance – Every aspect of American healthcare is regulated in some respect, and rightly so; it is those high standards that make our quality of medical care some of the best in the world. Managers have to be familiar with the rules and observe and ensure compliance with them among staff.

Supplies and Equipment – Few medical departments don’t use any kind of supplies, whether it’s printer paper or catgut sutures. Administrators are responsible for reviewing those needs, making sure stocks on hand are sufficient, and evaluating and updating gear when necessary.

Meetings – All of this coordinating and communicating happens by email, text, and phone at times, but in any modern American business, you will spend a lot of time in meetings. Managers in all roles have to be adept at presenting and running group meetings.

General Troubleshooting – One of the biggest but most unsung roles for any manager is just making sure the business of the department stays on track. Much of any day on the job for managers is spent uncovering information about problems, finding the right resources to solve them, and getting those resources into the right hands.

Planning – When any responsible manager actually has five free minutes of time to rub a few braincells together, that time is likely going to be devoted to planning. Much of what makes a department successful tomorrow comes down to groundwork that is laid today, so managers have to look ahead and develop long-term goals and ideas to stay ahead of the game. 

Continuing Education – Finally, managers at all levels and in all roles benefit from continuing education. In a fast-moving industry with highly technical processes and procedures, you have to study to keep up. Even if it’s not a part of formal certification processes, it’s still going to be a feature in your job to keep current with the latest developments.

General Health Administration Job Description

Health administrators work in such a wide variety of settings for so many different organizations and entities that there is no one single overarching job description. There are, however, some basic, fundamental duties and responsibilities that are common to most healthcare administrators.

• Maintaining smooth day-to-day operations across your facility or department
• Budgeting and allocating resources
• Searching for and mitigating inefficiencies in the facility’s operations and functions
• Managing and preparing for growth and change in your company and the industry as a whole
• Serving as a communication bridge between patients, staff, and leadership
• Soliciting and responding to concerns or questions from doctors, nurses, technicians, researchers, and other key personnel
• Developing and implementing strategies that benefit the overarching vision and mission of your healthcare facility
• Steering business development and planning marketing and advertising
• Conducting regular evaluations and performance reviews and acting on the results of those reviews (this could mean re-training any staff who aren’t meeting performance standards or offering more responsibility or promotion consideration to the who exceed standards)
• Vetting, hiring, training, and managing staff
• Coordinating with third-party entities like insurance companies and outside specialists
• Conducting market analysis to identify trends and changes in revenue drivers
• Coordinating between departments or specialties, such as research and clinical divisions
• Maintaining records, managing data, and protecting the integrity and confidentiality of both
• Developing and recommending cost-saving strategies
• Keeping up with and implementing changes in regulations or laws that govern the industry
• Ensuring that patient records and insurance information are up to date
• Managing and preparing for fluctuations in patient volume
• Ensuring compliance with internal policy, ethical standards, and legal requirements
• Keeping track of inventory for medical and office supplies, devices, and machines
• Developing and implementing talent retention programs
• Creating, implementing, and tracking quality standards in terms of both the level of care and delivery of services
• Preparing reports and making presentations
• Creating work schedules
• Creating staffing protocols and contingencies to guard against department shortages in case of an emergency or unforeseen event

Among all of these options, there’s no question that there is one that’s perfect for you. That’s because all of these jobs, in every setting and focus, come down to making it possible to do what you most want to do: help people in need. The paychecks are great, but the satisfaction at the end of your day may be even better.

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Below, Rachel George, Chief Operating Officer for Cogent Hospital Management Group, shares her tips for recognizing and avoiding burnout as a healthcare administrator.