The Covid pandemic changed not only how people lived, shopped, and worked, but it also changed how people viewed their jobs.
The pandemic helped many people realize they just wanted to do something else. That helps explain why nearly 48 million people quit their jobs in 2021 alone.
While many fled into tech fields like web development, others looked at areas like healthcare careers. If you think you might like to work in healthcare, one option is a healthcare administrator.
Not sure how you become a healthcare administrator or what they even do? Please keep reading for a breakdown of the healthcare admin role and what you need to transition into it.
What Do Healthcare Administrators Do?
Broadly speaking, healthcare administrators are responsible for and oversee daily operations in a wide range of medical facilities. Common places of employment include hospitals, nursing homes, residential care facilities, and in doctor’s offices. Depending on their education and experience, healthcare administrators might oversee an entire hospital or lone department.
Administration Job Duties
The exact duties of healthcare administrators will vary based on the facility, their role, and their credentials. Some common duties include:
- Recruitment and training of staff members
- Scheduling
- Ensuring compliance with relevant state laws and federal regulations
- Financial management, such as billing
- Ensuring budget compliance
- Ensuring health records are maintained
Healthcare administrators will often coordinate with department heads and medical staff to make sure their needs are met.
Essential Skills
As their jobs often cover a lot of ground, healthcare administrators need a varied set of skills to perform their job functions. For example, they need a good grasp of details for work, like creating schedules. Yet, they must also keep a bird’s eye view on things like training and onboarding.
Some essential skills for the role include:
- Good communication skills
- Good working knowledge of healthcare regs
- Leadership
- Goal setting
- Technical savvy
- Business/finance skills
- Good problem-solving skills
This combination of skills lets healthcare administrators deal with both the detail-oriented and big-picture demands of the role.
With the essentials of the role out of the way, let’s dig into how you become a healthcare administrator.
Bachelor’s Degree
As a general rule, you need a bachelor’s degree in healthcare administration or a related field to secure a role. Other degree disciplines that can potentially get your foot in the door include nursing, health science, public health, and even business.
Minimally, you want a mix of business classes and healthcare classes to help you prepare for the role, as you’ll need a working knowledge of both to succeed.
If you’re not completely set healthcare administration as a first career or a new career, you can also get an associate degree in healthcare management. This degree can help you secure a more entry-level position in healthcare management, but that can have benefits as well.
You can rack up some experience in the field, which will help you see if the role is a good fit. It can also help you make a little money as you pursue your bachelor’s degree.
Practical Experience
Practical experience is crucial for your career in two ways. First, it gives you a more realistic picture of what the career has in store for you if you stick with it. Second, if you’re considering getting an advanced degree, many master’s programs in healthcare administration require a minimum amount of work experience as part of their application process.
While the best option is an entry-level role working specifically in healthcare administration, it’s not the only option. You can pick up relevant experience in a number of ways.
For example, you get a sense of how recruiting and training are done by working in human resources. You can see how medical facilities handle billing by working in the billing department. You can also look for a job in a medical records department for a first-hand view of how hospitals maintain those records.
Graduate Degree
While a bachelor’s degree can still get your foot in the door in many places, a lot of bigger hospitals and medical facilities now require a master’s in healthcare admin for advancement into senior roles.
As a basic precaution, look for master’s programs with a CAHME accreditation. Certification by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education helps ensure that the program provides the right balance of education and skills development to help you succeed in the healthcare administrator job.
On the good news front, you can find both in-person and online master’s programs. If you’re not eager to take time off from your career, an online program can let you keep working and get the degree you need for advancement.
For the truly ambitious, you can even pursue a Ph.D. in healthcare administration. Although, most positions in the field won’t require a doctorate.
Professional Certifications
While it’s not an absolute requirement, it’s often advisable for aspiring healthcare administration executives to pick up some professional certifications. There are several organizations that provide certification in specific areas of healthcare admin. Some of the organizations include:
- The Association for Healthcare Administration Professionals
- The American Health Information Management Association
- The American Association of Healthcare Administration Management
- The Association for Healthcare Administrative Professionals
- The Healthcare Financial Management Association
- The National Association for Healthcare Quality
Certifications add a little luster to your resume and also help reassure healthcare facilities that you possess the right kind of expertise for a role.
Becoming a Healthcare Administrator
With so many people opting out of their old jobs in the last year or two, many of them need new career options. For those with an interest in healthcare jobs, but not necessarily medicine, a healthcare administrator job might prove just the right fit.
Healthcare admins help keep medical facilities open and running smoothly. They also help keep them staffed up and on budget. You also help keep them open by making sure your place of work stays in compliance.
Looking for more about healthcare jobs? Check out some of the posts in our Business and Health sections.