What is the Job Description for a Healthcare Administrator?

Any Health Care Administration job description emphasizes managing the business of health care. The career education opportunities for this role focus on how to plan, coordinate and oversee the effective and efficient delivery of health care. Health care providers are interested in how to deliver care to patients to get them back into good health. The Health Care Administrator is interested in how that care can be delivered in a way that is healthy for the facility or department.

Health Care Administrators may be in charge of one or more specific groups or units, or they may oversee the entire facility. Most often, this role is employed in hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices. Regardless of the size of the facility, the responsibilities of the Health Care Administrator are similar.

Health care is constantly changing. This role will be asked to maintain the quality of care being provided and do it as efficiently as possible. The Health Care Administrator needs to adapt to:

Ø the various ways care is delivered

Ø the technology deployed

Ø the regulations that must be followed

Ø the changing work environment

Ø the role of preventative care

This role might oversee a number of areas such as:

Ø nursing

Ø surgery

Ø internal medicine

Ø medical records

Ø information systems

Ø human resources

Ø finance

Ø facilities and material

Ø patient admissions

The level of responsibility differs depending on the size of the facility. The Health care Administrators at a senior care facility and a large teaching hospital both have similar budget responsibilities, but the scale is different.

There are specialists in Health care Administration called Clinical Managers. They are trained in their field of expertise, for example physical therapy or nursing, and then move into an administration role in that area. They manage the day-to-day operations and areas such as human resources and finance. However, Clinical Managers do report to a senior administrator in charge of the entire facility.

In large group practices, the administrator will work closely with the physicians or medical staff. One or more Health Care Administrators may be used to create policies, manage personnel, oversee billing and collections, develop budgets, do financial planning, and manage patient traffic. Even a small practice could have multiple administrators to provide coverage for all of the business areas.