Acquiring Your Healthcare Administration Degree

The next time you wonder what goes into healthcare administration, think about the way your traditional corporation is set up. 

Your office environment may have people responsible for different tasks and services, and the way they dress may vary. Once you get into corporate, however, standard dress is usually the suit and tie for men or a business suit for women, and their responsibilities are often conducted from desks in traditional sit-down jobs.

Extrapolating the Concept to Healthcare Administration

Now transfer this model to healthcare administration. On the front lines of health care, you may have on a doctor’s lab coat, nurses’ scrubs or medical uniforms as you work on patients and practice the medicine that will help cure the illness or disease. In the administration field, you don’t often see the hospital floor unless you are taking a tour of it.

With the Affordable Care Act and national health insurance taking the spotlight, these administration jobs are becoming more popular. According to the website explorehealthcareers.org, these jobs require four to six years of education but can pay anywhere from $40,000 to $110,000, and the job outlooks for these programs are excellent.

Job Description of a Healthcare Administrator

What exactly is health administration, anyway? Think about hospital administration and management. You have a facility to watch out for on a daily basis. Upkeep of the buildings is part of your job. Staff size falls under your jurisdiction. The budget you have to work with is part of your job. This requires a bit more in terms of financing know-how and working with numbers and line items in your budget.

A healthcare administration degree can often pave the way for universal healthcare careers. These careers revolve around health care and health insurance offered to citizens of a country. It is what countries like Canada and Great Britain already offer, and it is also what the United States may be like someday. Even though the ACA may be tweaked and torn apart over the years, depending on who is in power, the basic concept is likely here to stay.

Health Administration Degree Basics

In order to go for your degree in health administration, as previously mentioned, expect to see four years or more of classes. Basic classes might include knowledge of health management organizations (HMO’s), personnel management, financial management and the basics of the health care system. These classes are meant to get you trained for what you will have to go through on a daily basis with this job.

Also expect economics and health technology classes to be part of this degree. Technology changes on a daily basis. What is new now may be obsolete in two years. It always pays to be on top of the changing health scene.

These classes should prepare you more than adequately for universal health care careers. By the time you graduate, the type of insurance involved may change. If the United States ever goes to a single-payer system, that is as close to universal health care as you can get. You will be expertly set up to start your career off on the right foot.

[box type=”info”]The Bureau of Labor Statistics says this field will grow at an average of 22 percent faster than normal over the next decade. If you are involved in this field, you came in at the right time. If not, now is the perfect time to start.[/box]