How does one become a health care administrator?

[glassesvar]

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[CAFFEINE!]

Step 1: become a soul-sucking, profit-obsessed vampire.
Step 2: get a dual MD-MBA
Step 3: complete your medical training
Step 4: take on leadership roles in your hospital as they become available.
Step 5: ruin physicians' lives.
Step 6: profit.

 

[LizzyM]

No need to get an MD degree. Get an undergrad degree in business. Do an internship during college in a health care system. Be an overnight administrator for a couple of years (pay your dues), go on for an MBA and climb the ladder kissing the people above you on every rung.

Nuring administration is the same game but start with an undergrad degree in nursing... Last time I looked, one of our administrators who started with a BSN was making high six figures.

 

[MyOdyssey]

No need to get an MD degree. Get an undergrad degree in business. Do an internship during college in a health care system. Be an overnight administrator for a couple of years (pay your dues), go on for an MBA and climb the ladder kissing the people above you on every rung.

Nuring administration is the same game but start with an undergrad degree in nursing... Last time I looked, one of our administrators who started with a BSN was making high six figures.

Is it helpful to have actual experience as a physician or nurse to be an administrator?

Do hospitals hire administrators who come from the health insurance industry?

 

[CherryRedDracul]

Is it helpful to have actual experience as a physician or nurse to be an administrator?

Do hospitals hire administrators who come from the health insurance industry?

No, it's better to not have any experience as a physician so that you are less likely to think of patients, physicians, nurses, etc., as people and more as inanimate cogs in the money-churning machine.

The bottom line is all that matters. Feelings only get in the way of wealth.


(yes, bitter)

 

[MyOdyssey]

No, it's better to not have any experience as a physician so that you are less likely to think of patients, physicians, nurses, etc., as people and more as inanimate cogs in the money-churning machine.

The bottom line is all that matters. Feelings only get in the way of wealth.


(yes, bitter)

What about department heads at hospitals and medical schools? They typically have extensive clinical experience.

Aren't they considered administrators as well?

 

[LizzyM]

What about department heads at hospitals and medical schools? They typically have extensive clinical experience.

Aren't they considered administrators as well?

Don't confuse a department head at a medical school or hospital for an administrator. The chairman of medicine or surgery or pediatrics, etc is a physician. That person has a role in department hiring of physicians and administrative assistants, manages budgets with a department administrator (budgets for physician salaries, office space, assistants for faculty members, mayby some research staff), sits on the Dean's Council, has responsibility for the selection and training of med students, residents and fellows but delegates that residency director and clerkship director, may have a role in mentoring/coaching of researchers who bring in the research dollars in the department.

It is a different kind of administration than the hospital administrators who are deciding how to fund-raise for a new wing, decide whether to replace the carpets in the lobby, negotiate a union contract with the nurses , send out bids for renovations to the radiology suite, review and revise the employee benefits package for next in light of rising health insurance premiums, deal with vendors, pay bills, handle payroll, send bills to patients/third parties and contract with a collection agency, etc, etc

 

[wholeheartedly]

1. Find devil
2. Sell soul
3. Profit!


(also bitter)

 

[aymar]

For hospital administration, get an MHA or MBA, preferably from a name brand school.

 

[deleted804295]

Wow, what's wrong with health care administrators? I haven't worked with them so I don't have first hand experience.

 

[getdown]

Wow, what's wrong with health care administrators? I haven't worked with them so I don't have first hand experience.

Because these people sit behind their computer looking at financial "data points" and then determining hospital wide policy to address those points regardless of whether or not patient care is affected or if it places undue burden to actual healthcare workers forced to implement these policies. Not to mention pursuing "quality improvement" projects that are neither of quality nor provide any improvement of any substantiative nature aside from annoying the hell out of everyone else. Did I also mention they get paid a lot of money and bonuses to do this? The saying those who can't do teach apply here. These tend to be physicians/nurses who have poor clinical skills, hate patient contact or are ambitious (or combo of all 3) hence commit themselves to climbing the corporate ladder and be a "manager".

 

[mariposas905]

Because these people sit behind their computer looking at financial "data points" and then determining hospital wide policy to address those points regardless of whether or not patient care is affected or if it places undue burden to actual healthcare workers forced to implement these policies. Not to mention pursuing "quality improvement" projects that are neither of quality nor provide any improvement of any substantiative nature aside from annoying the hell out of everyone else. Did I also mention they get paid a lot of money and bonuses to do this? The saying those who can't do teach apply here. These tend to be physicians/nurses who have poor clinical skills, hate patient contact or are ambitious (or combo of all 3) hence commit themselves to climbing the corporate ladder and be a "manager".

How much money do healthcare administrators make in reality? I always wondered why the physicians I worked with hated them

 

[puahate]

How much money do healthcare administrators make in reality? I always wondered why the physicians I worked with hated them

I saw data before showing the growth of healthcare admins salaries outpaced physician salary over the past few years. (This is not saying they earn more in gross but that over the past few years admins have been increasing in earning power while physicians earns hardly grew in comparison)

 

[whatbout2morrow]

No need to get an MD degree. Get an undergrad degree in business. Do an internship during college in a health care system. Be an overnight administrator for a couple of years (pay your dues), go on for an MBA and climb the ladder kissing the people above you on every rung.

Nuring administration is the same game but start with an undergrad degree in nursing... Last time I looked, one of our administrators who started with a BSN was making high six figures.

This.

It helps if the undergrad degree gives you a specific skill set, i.e. accounting/finance/IT/nursing as opposed to something like general business or management (unless you are well-connected). In regards to internships, there are so many healthcare MBA/MHA programs these days that a lot of low-level internships which would have taken undergrad students in the past seem to now require you to be in a graduate degree program.

Enroll in an MHA or MHA/MBA dual degree program that has a required residency and a good track record of alumni reaching top administrative positions. Avoid a weekend/online healthcare MBA unless you are already on track to advance and just need the MBA just for the sake of having an MBA. Business is all about networking, weekend/online programs don't give you much opportunity to do that.

 

[Astharia]

Literally: Master's in healthcare administration

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using SDN mobile

 

[mimelim]

Because these people sit behind their computer looking at financial "data points" and then determining hospital wide policy to address those points regardless of whether or not patient care is affected or if it places undue burden to actual healthcare workers forced to implement these policies. Not to mention pursuing "quality improvement" projects that are neither of quality nor provide any improvement of any substantiative nature aside from annoying the hell out of everyone else. Did I also mention they get paid a lot of money and bonuses to do this? The saying those who can't do teach apply here. These tend to be physicians/nurses who have poor clinical skills, hate patient contact or are ambitious (or combo of all 3) hence commit themselves to climbing the corporate ladder and be a "manager".

Conversely, the vast majority of physicians in clinical practice do this when confronted with anything not directly patient related:

And then proceed to bitch continuously. Medicine does not get practiced in some academic bubble. The number of times I listen to physicians say, "I just want to take care of and see patients." is nauseating. The practical realities of medical practice are astoundingly lost on most physicians.

This in no way counters that there are plenty of boneheaded administrators that do equally boneheaded things. My point is that just as there are good and bad physicians, there are good and bad administrators. Practicing medicine in the United States is complicated. I also beg anyone who differs in opinion to start (or attempt to start) their own practice first and realize how much happen so that a physician can, "just take care of patients". For every boneheaded move I've seen the administration make, I've seen just as many complaints from physicians about things that honest to God make perfect sense when you depart from the physician centric view.

 

[aldol16]

So many different ways that it's hard to generalize. Getting an MBA might help but there are plenty of MD administrators and plenty of MD-MBAs who don't get administrator positions. You start with an organization and start taking on more and more responsibilities and work your way up.

 

[getdown]

Conversely, the vast majority of physicians in clinical practice do this when confronted with anything not directly patient related:

And then proceed to bitch continuously. Medicine does not get practiced in some academic bubble. The number of times I listen to physicians say, "I just want to take care of and see patients." is nauseating. The practical realities of medical practice are astoundingly lost on most physicians.

This in no way counters that there are plenty of boneheaded administrators that do equally boneheaded things. My point is that just as there are good and bad physicians, there are good and bad administrators. Practicing medicine in the United States is complicated. I also beg anyone who differs in opinion to start (or attempt to start) their own practice first and realize how much happen so that a physician can, "just take care of patients". For every boneheaded move I've seen the administration make, I've seen just as many complaints from physicians about things that honest to God make perfect sense when you depart from the physician centric view.

It's very sad how true your words are. The current climate of physician dissatisfaction and complaints of mid-level encroachment are partially to be blamed on physician complacency. They're more than happy to take home their large paychecks while ceding control to non-medical admins who have more experience in business than healthcare. Most physicians forget that patient care is half the battle. The other, and more important battle, surrounds hospital administration and policy decisions both in the hospital and in the broader public arena. The unfortunate thing is that those physicians who are well intentioned and care about patients are not the ones rising to the positions to affect or advocate for policy in a meaningful way.

 

[Goro]

Conversely, the vast majority of physicians in clinical practice do this when confronted with anything not directly patient related:

And then proceed to bitch continuously. Medicine does not get practiced in some academic bubble. The number of times I listen to physicians say, "I just want to take care of and see patients." is nauseating. The practical realities of medical practice are astoundingly lost on most physicians.

This in no way counters that there are plenty of boneheaded administrators that do equally boneheaded things. My point is that just as there are good and bad physicians, there are good and bad administrators. Practicing medicine in the United States is complicated. I also beg anyone who differs in opinion to start (or attempt to start) their own practice first and realize how much happen so that a physician can, "just take care of patients". For every boneheaded move I've seen the administration make, I've seen just as many complaints from physicians about things that honest to God make perfect sense when you depart from the physician centric view.

I see you're an attending now! Congrats!!!

 

[mk536]

I started down this route before switching paths towards medical research, so I have a few insights here on how to get going. Healthcare admin can sometimes seem difficult to break into as a new grad. Entry level positions mostly require an MPH/MHA/MBA and all worthwhile MPH/MHA programs require a couple years experience in the field at a minimum. The way you get around this is by networking. Contact people in the field in the region you'd like to work in and set up informational interviews. See if your school's alumni network or career counseling can get you connected. Attend job fairs. Ideally those connections will yield an entry level position. If not, then do something for a few years that can be useful to healthcare admin, such as accounting, business, public health, quality improvement, etc. You then get your master's and can go from there.

Just like with anything else, the urban coastal centers are crawling with qualified candidates, while you may have more luck starting out pre-MHA at a more rural hospital or a smaller system in a less desirable region. Also remember that entry level postings often go to people who are connected- your resume may not even get looked at if you're applying out of nowhere.

There are a few fellowships that place college interns and new grads with organizations as well, especially if you are a minority or interested in working primarily with underserved populations.

As for what degree (MPH/MBA/MHA) to go for, different regions have different preferences. It's best to get your degree in the region that you intend to work in and of the type that is most common in that area, unless you're going to Harvard or a similar institution, in which case it doesn't matter as much. Remember that these degrees are as much or more about networking than education. You want to go to a school where you can meet your classmates (so don't go online unless there is a significant in person component) and where your classmates are going to be useful connections down the road.

 

[OneTwoThreeFour]

Is why physicians dislike administratos.

 

[Phile98]

Maybe if more administrators were actually physicians, they could be more liked. Unless of course, they got greedy anyway and succcumbed to the dark side...

 

[LizzyM]

Maybe if more administrators were actually physicians, they could be more liked. Unless of course, they got greedy anyway and succcumbed to the dark side...

Most physicians don't want to be administrators. Do you want to study accounting, read balance sheets, negotiate contracts, request bids, manage employee benefit packages, cut checks, manage accounts receivable, etc, etc.

 

[Phile98]

Most physicians don't want to be administrators. Do you want to study accounting, read balance sheets, negotiate contracts, request bids, manage employee benefit packages, cut checks, manage accounts receivable, etc, etc.

Hard pass. I think I've watched too many doctor shows lol.