Overview
Healthcare administration demands that you have knowledge and abilities in health matters, business, technology, insurance and privacy regulations. As you take your courses and learn specifically about running a health facility, you’ll begin to see how every moving piece fits and works with the other pieces. That is, computer technology works with cybersecurity; insurance decisions depend greatly on HIPAA; administration itself means that you need to get several diverse personalities and teams working together.
You’ll work both on the theoretical and practical, especially as you apply what is in your books to real-life situations in your internship. You’ll be able to examine how various management choices work out and affect the outcome of different kinds of situations.
You’ll learn how to work with others as a member of a team; apply leadership principles and develop teams that work well with each other.
What is a Bachelor’s in Healthcare Administration?
This bachelor’s degree goes beyond the B.B.A. or bachelor’s in business administration. You’ll learn finance and economics from a health facility’s outlook. You and your classmates will learn about leadership and put that into practice, again from a health practitioner’s outlook. As you learn how to manage personnel, you’ll learn how different it is to supervise healthcare providers.
Bachelor’s degree in healthcare management
A degree that teaches you about the various forces that impact healthcare systems
Structured in how it works
A set of strategies that enable healthcare facilities and personnel to work with other non-healthcare sectors
A field that brings together several financial factors in paying for health services.
Healthcare personnel are charged with the responsibility of working confidentially and ethically with those who come into their organization. As a healthcare administrator, you’ll have to learn about the same principles and ethics.
Healthcare personnel may require a different form of leadership. Doctors, interns, residents and nurses have so much specialized knowledge that their role in health care requires a different type of leadership.
While you’ll be using business principles, you’ll need to use those practices that fit best with healthcare environments.
This field requires everyone working in healthcare to strive to improve the lives of everyone they encounter. You’ll help to plan and coordinate the delivery of healthcare services. Even though you won’t have a healthcare degree, you will need to work very closely with medical staff in ways that improve the care that patients get. This is one of the largest and fastest-growing fields in the U.S.
As the U.S. population ages, it will need increasing amounts of healthcare and intervention. As a healthcare administrator, you’ll be responsible for ensuring that everyone who needs care gets it. As technology affects how healthcare is provided, you’ll have to be at the front of the changes, directing how your staff learns to use new applications.
Career and Salary Outlook
Because of the changing demographics within the U.S., healthcare administration is becoming an even larger career field, and this won’t stop any time soon.
Healthcare administrators who have earned their bachelor’s degrees can expect to earn about $47.29 per hour, which is the median pay for 2017. Also, as of 2017, annual median pay is about $98,350.
In 2016, there were 352,200 healthcare administrators in the U.S.; this field will increase by 20 percent between 2016 and 2026, which is faster than average.
School Curriculum
Your first two semesters will cover your general education courses, such as math, computer science, English composition and a technology class. You may also take a medical terminology class.
As you progress into subsequent semesters or quarters, you’ll take more advanced classes, such as a science requirement. Additional math classes will be more involved, such as an advanced algebra or statistics class. Once you’ve been officially accepted into the healthcare administration major, you’ll take healthcare management courses and case study courses.
Now, you also begin to take electives in healthcare management—these are not part of the core healthcare management required courses. Instead, these are also healthcare management-related classes that give you an additional insight into the profession you’ve chosen. Finally, you’ll take more technical courses. In some school programs, these will have to be pre-approved by your school’s healthcare administration academic adviser.
Because healthcare administration runs so heavily toward business practices, a huge percentage of your required classes will be in a business discipline. These may include accounting from different aspects, macroeconomics and microeconomics, management courses and legal issues related to healthcare management.
You can expect to cover legal issues, which will delve into case law. In addition, you’ll learn about the organization and administration of healthcare programs in various environments. You may also be required to take a course in international business.
Your math skills should be strong. You’ll have to take at least one statistics class along with other types of math classes. Additionally, you’ll be heavily exposed to marketing classes and policy courses.
Expect to take a class on requirements in healthcare and classes that delve into healthcare and politics.
The more and more advanced you are in the bachelor program, the more advanced your classes become. You’ll take courses that relate healthcare to the community, third-party reimbursements and risk management and issues in community-based healthcare delivery.
In your senior year, you’ll be required to take a class in human resource management. You may also have to take a class on operations management and production. Finally, take the senior seminar in healthcare management, which demonstrates to your professors your understanding of the role of a healthcare manager.
Choosing the Right School and Program
You want a program in a career field that is growing rapidly. By becoming a healthcare administrator, you are assured of a job after you graduate. As the population in the U.S. gets older, more demands will be put on healthcare organizations. More access to healthcare because more people are insured also means more people see their doctors.
This is a fast-paced field. You’ll rarely do the same thing twice in a row. You can even move from one state to another, maintaining your connection to the healthcare field. Upon graduation, you’ll be ready to enter the office and begin working right away.
Think about what you want to get from a good school with an excellent healthcare administration program. Aside from one-on-one attention, you may want courses that touch on healthcare reform, with those policies being as recent as possible. You may need to learn about healthcare reform as it applies to the recent past.
Once you become a healthcare administrator, you’ll be rated as an expert in this field. Your professional knowledge is highly specialized—it would be difficult, if at all achievable, for someone with a non-healthcare business degree to enter your field. Here is what would qualify you for this designation:
Understanding the population growth of the aging
Healthcare reform policies
Mandates on efficiency and related pressures
The redefinition of “continuum of care”
Moral and ethical considerations (of healthcare)
Taken individually, each one of these topics is daunting to consider, let alone to learn about. Once you realize you need to be intimately familiar about all five topics, that’s when you realize just how much of an expert you truly are. If the healthcare industry within the U.S. doesn’t have enough of these experts, then, individual healthcare systems will begin to suffer. When they falter, then recipients of their services begin to feel the reverberations as well.
All of this to say you need to be able to choose just the right school. You’re probably already something of a visionary. Once you graduate, you’ll have a highly specific vision of the U.S. healthcare field.
Look at programs that give you a broad enough education to allow you to work in a wide range of healthcare environments, from medical practices to pharmaceutical companies. At the same time, your education must be specialized enough that you can apply everything you learn to the healthcare organization where you’ll be working.
The right program gives you the skills you need. They will be career-based and practical. You’ll be able to relate them directly to the responsibilities of your job.
As you consider the different bachelor programs, keep in mind what makes you feel the most passionate. If your first answer is people, you’re definitely on the right track. Even if you want to work in a healthcare-related administration field, but you’d rather not have direct patient contact, that’s not an issue. You’ll be able to work in a healthcare-related organization, such as insurance.
The college program you choose should allow you to learn the skills you’ll need to work in any healthcare setting. It should allow you to keep up with ever-changing healthcare trends. You should be able to obtain a 360-degree view of healthcare management. The right program should also enable to become extremely hirable by different organizations. Here are a few healthcare industries to consider:
Healthcare informatics
Community health
Healthcare quality management
Healthcare leadership
Healthcare systems
So, whether you face people directly or not, you’ll still be making a positive impact in their lives.
How to Pick a Bachelors in Healthcare Administration
If you are interested in pursuing a bachelors in healthcare administration, it is important to learn as much as you can about the field. There are so many options available to those who have an interest in becoming a nurse, which can be a great choice for those looking to jump-start their career. It is important to make sure that you have the proper background and education before you consider pursuing the type of healthcare administration degree that you are most interested in.
You can get any of the healthcare administration degrees offered by the university. Some of the courses are typically five-year programs. These typically include courses such as clinical practice, clinical, and laboratory sciences, medical ethics, medical history, medical informatics, human resources, pharmaceutical sciences, and quality improvement. This kind of program is usually a two-year program, although some colleges may offer four-year programs.
When you are looking for the perfect Bachelors in healthcare administration degree, there are a few things that you should look for. The first thing that you need to consider is whether or not you have the right foundation. After all, you will be working with people who know a lot more than you do. Even though you may be able to learn more about the field from a master's degree, it is important to start out as a basic student before you go any further.
Once you have decided on a Bachelors in healthcare administration program, you should begin to look for programs that fit your goals. If you want to work in the hospital setting, then you need to find an associate's degree program. For students who already have a bachelor's degree, this can be a great option.
The other option is to go directly to a four-year program, which includes both courses and an internship. This can be a great option for those who need a solid foundation. A student should also consider other options as well. He or she can always take a part-time job after completing their program and going into the hospital system.
Bachelors in healthcare administration degree programs are offered at many colleges across the country. If you are considering one of these programs, it is important to research a few schools. Make sure that the institution is accredited and has a number of years of experience in the healthcare industry.
After deciding on a Bachelors in healthcare administration program, you should complete the coursework and have the internships that you need. It is important to make sure that you finish on time, and if you are choosing a job after graduation, make sure that you have good references. For many people, this is the best way to get started in the health care industry.