Why Earn an MBA With a Healthcare Administration Concentration?

Healthcare administration team using tablet and discussing hospital administration issues

With the volatility of today’s job market, one area that remains in constant growth is healthcare. For those that want to manage the future of the field, an online MBA with a concentration in Healthcare Administration from Spring Arbor University can open doors to exciting leadership roles, enticing salaries, and above all, an important means to care for the community around you.

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What Does an MBA with a Healthcare Administration Concentration Focus on?

Spring Arbor’s online MBA with a concentration in Healthcare Administration provides a comprehensive understanding of business tailored to the dynamics of the healthcare profession. The degree is nonclinical and primes students with industry knowledge, so they can pursue managerial roles in the field following graduation. Courses such as Managerial Finance in Healthcare or Trends in Healthcare Administration help students to gain an expert foundation in leadership principles within healthcare systems.

What Can I do with an MBA in Healthcare Administration?

Typical roles pursued by those who hold an MBA in Healthcare Administration or Management offer the ability to meld business management acumen with issues specific to the healthcare industry. This combination can take on various forms including:

Managing distinct divisions of a larger healthcare facility, such as finance or marketing
Serving as a lead administrator who oversees a smaller clinic you make critical managerial decisions across all aspects of care

Regardless of scope or specialization, an MBA in Healthcare Management will allow you to assume a leadership role within the healthcare industry.

How Can I Stand Out as a Leader and Create Positive Change?

Those who oversee medical staff can cultivate a positive work environment and reinforce the advantages of teamwork in nursing. By promoting cooperation among medical teams, both staff and patients are positively impacted. When nurses work as a cohesive cohort, patients experience a more consistent quality of care.

Spring Arbor’s online MBA underscores the importance of nurse team building. Students learn how strong relationships between nursing teams can transfer to improvements in patient care. Also emphasized are the strategies for boosting such relationships through tried-and-true nurse team building activities that might include:

Icebreaker activities to welcome new nursing team members;
Regular social gatherings, such as potlucks, outside of work hours; or
Mentorship programs between senior and junior staff to bolster professional support.

These types of nurse team building initiatives can go far to build a sense of both community and comradery. As an MBA graduate, you will know how to use your positive influence as a leader.

How Healthy is the Job Market in Healthcare Administration?

Roles in healthcare administration offer a strong sense of job security with substantial salaries.

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS) reported that the median salary in 2018 for those in healthcare administration roles was $99,730, with some areas over $100,000 annually.
The USBLS also projects a 20 percent growth in such managerial jobs by 2026, which is much faster than the national average
A recent Corporate Recruiters Survey from the Graduate Management Admissions Council reported that more than one-quarter of employers would be willing to pay more for MBAs with a healthcare specialization
The healthcare specialized-MBA is so popular that more than 40 percent of employers will help fund their employees’ pursuit of the graduate credential

Many pursue an MBA in Healthcare Administration or Management because they wish to devote their careers to transforming care in their community - it is reassuring to know that these professionals are not only in demand but also rewarded for their dedication.

Creating the Potential for Advancement and Leadership

Many careers offer the opportunity for advancement, but with an MBA focused on healthcare administration, you are setting yourself up for excellent chances for future growth. You can go on to not just lead medical departments, but over time you could become the leader of an entire medical facility.

If you think a leadership role would be ideal for you, then an MBA in general is a great choice. However, focusing on healthcare management allows you to dial in on leadership skills and, when completed, will give you an opportunity to oversee large staffs that include many different healthcare specialties.

Put Your Degree to a Higher Cause

When you work as a healthcare administrator, you won’t be administering lifesaving medication. You won’t be working directly with patients to increase quality of life, and you won’t be there to witness physical recovery. But you will be part of it.

There are certainly rewards to working as a manager or administrator in other industries, but when you bring your administrative talents to the healthcare field, you are helping people to improve their lives. Instead of simply overseeing an office staff that performs basic corporate services, you are helping to organize the care and wellbeing of children, adults, and the elderly.

You may not be saving lives yourself, but when you work in healthcare administration, you are literally hiring the people who will. This alone can be an impactful reason for choosing on online MBA healthcare program.

A Serious Responsibility

Ensuring the delivery of care demands distinct attributes in a healthcare. Aspirants must come to work with a genuine concern for improving the lives of the patients they serve. Preventing people from becoming sick, improving their quality of life, ameliorating the effects of illness and granting dignity to the end of life are among the highest callings an individual can pursue. These are as much the province of a healthcare administrator as they are a doctor or nurse.

Spring Arbor University’s online MBA with a concentration in healthcare administration is conducted with these considerations given precedence in every hour of online study.

The Demand for Healthcare Administration Professionals

In 2014, the United Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued a report titled Healthcare: Millions of Jobs Now and in the Future. Between 2012 and 2022, the BLS projected that healthcare would add over four million jobs, more than any other single sector of the American economy.[i]

The reasons for this are obvious: Healthcare is always in demand, and as the Baby Boomers continue to age into retirement they will exert greater pressure on existing resources. This same aging population will soon vacate many of the healthcare administration jobs that help the system stay afloat.

Amid uncertainty about the future of the Affordable Care Act, there has never been a greater call for able and innovative managers in the field. Spring Arbor University’s online MBA with a concentration in Healthcare Administration prepares students to enter a profession with limitless opportunity.

How Can an MBA in Healthcare Administration Help?

Most healthcare administrators were never medical professionals by trade, though they must be intimately familiar with the landscape. Rather than the body of an individual patient, their concern is the health of the facility they manage, be it a small private practice or a metropolitan hospital. They allocate resources to areas of need, ensure that staff has the support required to perform at their best, navigate the finances of their institution and, in conjunction with doctors and senior executives, dictate the policies that guide how care is delivered.

These tasks require serious business acumen equal to that required of any other corporate or entrepreneurial environment. An MBA with a specialization in healthcare administration provides graduates with a comprehensive understanding of the modern business world, including personnel management, marketing, finance, leadership and more. Within the healthcare concentration, students will also develop a nuanced outlook of the industry as it stands today.

At SAU, courses include deep dives into topics such as healthcare-specific managerial finance; the latest approaches on ensuring quality; and the trends which will dictate the sector’s evolution in the decades to come.

Jobs Available with an MBA in Healthcare Administration

Here are some of the top jobs potentially available for those holding an MBA in healthcare administration.

Hospital CEO

Average Salary: $386,000/year Typical Job Duties and Functions: Hospital CEOs ensure hospitals perform efficiently. They set and communicate a vision of their hospital to employees and the community. They also lead strategic development initiatives to ensure long-term hospital success. Hospital CEOs and other top healthcare executives (such as CFOs and Chief Nursing Officers) often serve as the public face for the healthcare facility and typically put in long hours to ensure efficient operations, but in exchange, they are rewarded with substantial salaries.

Hospital Administrator

Average Salary: $237,000/year Typical Job Duties and Functions: Hospital administrators ensure hospitals run smoothly by overseeing their staffing, financial, regulatory compliance, and operation needs. Hospital administrators supervise staff and coordinate departments to reach organizational goals and communicate with the press and local medical community. They also set the hospital's budget and the costs for services.

Medical and Health Services Managers

Average Salary: $111,680/year Typical Job Duties and Functions: Medical and health services managers are employed in various settings and can manage departments in hospitals and other large organizations, or entire private medical practices. Health services managers perform managerial tasks, such as recruiting and training of new staff, improving efficiency in the delivery of healthcare services, setting department budgets and confirming that the facility and medical technology is up to date with current regulations.

Healthcare Finance Managers

Average Salary: $125,080/year Typical Job Duties and Functions: Healthcare finance managers have a wide range of job options including in-house accountants and auditors to analysts and managers, and responsibilities can vary depending on the size of the facility. Financial managers ensure that healthcare organizations keep accurate financial records and file relevant reports properly, advise on the feasibility of proposed healthcare services, develop long-term financial strategies for the organization and make investment decisions.

Practice Administrator/Manager

Average Salary: $60,271/year Typical Job Duties and Functions: A practice administrator or manager traditionally serves as a director of a smaller-scale medical facility, such as a private clinic or limited provider medical office. Online healthcare MBA recipients who pursue these roles would be in charge of the major corporate decisions for the clinic or office, including regulating the facility’s budget, setting the schedule for the participating providers and overseeing all hiring and training protocols. A job with a substantial amount of responsibility, practice manager positions can make for a great opportunity for online healthcare MBA graduates to gain valuable managerial experience as a stepping stone to a similar executive role within a larger hospital network.

Healthcare Consultant

Average Salary: $76,887/year Typical Job Duties and Functions: Healthcare consultants look to the “bigger picture,” so to speak, of a medical facility and seek out ways to improve services or optimize performance. Having the advantage of an objective outsider’s eye on the management and operations of a medical facility, healthcare consultants research practices and offer their recommendations on aspects in which a given facility might seek improvement. Online healthcare MBA graduates who pursue such a consultancy should be prepared for research-heavy roles with tight deadlines but at the same time can look forward to a dynamic working environment that offers engagement with a wide variety of healthcare facilities.

Stepping into a Bright Career

Graduates from Spring Arbor’s online MBA with a concentration in Healthcare Administration emerge prepared to lead and inspire others in the field. Whether you’re implementing nurse team building initiatives in a bustling hospital, or restructuring the financial operations of a smaller clinic, your MBA will be rooted in ethical business practice within the scope of healthcare.

We believe healthcare professionals who strive for a purpose higher than profit maximization achieve greater results. And, the people who make the most profound differences are those who stand on principles of service. Developed and delivered by the faculty of the Gainey School of Business, Spring Arbor University's online MBA in Healthcare Administration focuses on the development of knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary for leadership positions in the fastest growing industry in the U.S.

You examine the fundamentals of financial management in the healthcare sector and learn to manage and control costs while simultaneously investing resources in strategic opportunities.
You learn to identify the principles of quality improvement necessary for creating a quality culture in healthcare. This includes examining tools and methods for planning and implementing quality improvement initiatives.
You explore the balanced scorecard approach to strategic planning and management for translating strategy to action.

An MBA from SAU is affordable, flexible, relevant and transformational. Tuition and fees are just over $26,000. You can finish your online MBA in about 18 months. Complete the form on this page or call 1.844.621.0900 for more information.

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