The healthcare industry has seen sustained growth over the past few years. This is in part to the industry being fully reformed. One of the big changes within the world of healthcare is that there is a commitment to increasing the overall level of education of all those who work within it. Those who have completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a healthcare concentration are in particularly high demand. They are able to ensure that budgets are being met, that customer care benchmarks are followed, and that the overall health outcomes improve as well. They are responsible for driving the revolution in to make care delivery more affordable and, most of all, of higher quality.
Where to Get an Entry Level Position
The field of healthcare is huge, ranging from massive metropolitan hospitals, to home care delivery in a small rural village. All of these fields require people with excellent management skills. Within larger healthcare organizations, like hospitals, there are often requirements for people in specific departments, such as gynecology or gerontology. Entry level positions are available across all fields and specializations of healthcare.
1. Medical and Health Services Manager
In this role, you will direct and coordinate all of the administrative aspects of healthcare facilities, including clinics, hospital wings, doctor’s offices, and more. Depending on where you will get to work, you may have to fully supervise a facility or an office, or you may hold responsibility for a specific department. Medical and health services managers are known under various other names, including clinical managers, office managers, and administrators. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), medical and health services managers earn an average of $94,500 per year at bachelor’s degree level. Holding an MBA can add as much as $15,000 per year to your salary, at entry level. The top 10% of earners in this field earn $165,380 per year or more. The BLS also projects a demand growth of 17% between 2014 and 2024, which is much faster than average.
2. Administrative Medical Assistant
As an administrative medical assistant, you will work together with nurses and physicians in various clinics, providing them with the administrative support that they need. They are most commonly found in private practices, clinics, and doctor’s offices. If you hold an MBA in this field, you will usually manage the administrative office, which generally includes the receptionists, physicians’ assistants, and medical coders.
3. Medical Secretary
Medical secretaries are responsible for the correspondence between physicians, patients, and other elements of the healthcare industry. They also coordinate between various offices, laboratories, insurance companies, government organizations, other hospitals, and so on. While you do not need an extensive degree to become a medical secretary, larger hospitals and clinics often have pools of secretaries and other administrative support, and those do need management support. This is something that you can do as an MBA degree holder.
4. Patient Services Representative
As a patient services representative, you will have a far more forward facing role. You will actually work directly with patients and their families, ensuring that they understand their treatment, have all their questions answered, and know their complaints and issues are dealt with properly. You will be responsible for making sure that all the elements involved in the care of a patient are managed properly. You will usually find employment in larger clinics or hospitals.
5. Medical Records and Health Information Technician
In this role, you are likely to get to work in smaller private practices, clinics, and hospitals. You will manage and organize all the information in relation to patients, making sure it is not just accurate but also secure. You will also hold responsibility for the management of medical records, sorting data and retrieving it. If you hold an MBA in health informatics, you will have particularly in demand skills. Significant growth is expected in those who directly deal with medical records but as an MBA holder, you will be able to manage and oversee them. Hence, growth for MBA degree holders is also very strong.
6. Health Informatics Manager
If you become a health informatics manager, you will usually work in a medical facility like a hospital or other clinic. You will be responsible for making sure all the data that comes in and goes out of the setting is managed properly. This means you will have to work with both hardware and software, focusing on the various computers that are being used in your setting. Plus, you have to make sure that all information is properly processed and that it runs as efficiently as possible. This is a growing field of interest and many settings attract MBA degree holders by offering bonuses and other incentives.
7. Pharmaceutical Product Manager
This role often brings with it a very interesting starting salary. You will usually have to start as a representative, meaning that you try to encourage other healthcare organizations to use the pharmaceutical products that your company produces. Interpersonal skills, therefore, are of vital importance. You will need to visit various clinics and hospitals, providing them with information on and samples of products. There is a lot of travel involved in this role, which means it is perhaps not quite suitable for those who have a family life. Also, it is a role in which you must be committed to furthering your education, as you must always remain up to date with newly developed drugs and other pharmaceutical products.
8. Healthcare Administrator
In this role, you will generally get to work in a facility such as a dental office, plastic surgery clinic, family doctor surgery, and so on. It is common to have to work around 50 hours a week, particularly at entry level. You must have excellent communication and interpersonal skills, as well as soft skills such as patience. One of the reasons why MBA degree holders are in such high demand for this position is because they also have better financial skills. As a healthcare administrator, you will oversee the full management of the facility you work for. This means that you perform salary negotiations, analyze budgets, focus on finances include tax, and so on. You can, if you have attention to detail and are really dedicated, grow on to become supervisor or manager, eventually rising to the level of top executive. At the very top of the top executives, you could earn as much as $187,200 per year or more, although this will take quite a long period to achieve.
9. Health Insurance Manager
Insurance and healthcare go hand in hand, and this means that there is a huge demand for people with management and supervisory experience that can cover both those fields. This is exactly what someone with an MBA degree can offer. You will be responsible for the full insurance elements of healthcare. Depending on what type of setting you to get work in, you will probably have to supervise insurance representative, hold financial administration duties, have to organize insurance policies, fill in insurance documents, and more. You can find work in larger hospitals and clinics.
10. Human Resource Representative
Human resource representatives are required across the full field of healthcare as well. In this role, you will monitor personnel across the setting, deal with employee relations, ensure that workplace behavior practices are proper, and more. Usually, MBA holders in the field of healthcare take on human resource positions in fields such as alternative medicine (acupuncture, dermatology, chiropractic services, and dental offices).
If you hold an MBA degree with a healthcare concentration, you have the potential to take on any of many different entry-level positions. Although these positions are ‘entry level’, their salaries are anything but. You will instantly be recognized for your advanced degree through good salaries, signing bonuses, and other perks of the job. Holding an MBA degree with a healthcare concentration is proof that you have advanced skills in all fields of administration and management, specific to the challenging and unique world of healthcare. Significant and rapid growth can be expected, therefore.
