Essential Credentials for Beginner Health Administrators

You know that healthcare administration is among the highest-paying careers — but the best pay comes to the most qualified, most experienced and highest-level professionals. You can certainly aspire to high-level roles in health administration, such as c-suite positions at hospitals and major clinics, but at the start of your career, you need to put in the time and effort to gain the credentials you will need to get you to those enviable positions.

Medical Management

Medical managers are the front-line leaders of administrative activities supporting healthcare services. Smaller healthcare settings like doctor’s offices, nursing homes, hospice centers and community clinics rely heavily on medical managers to make and maintain budgets, train and oversee personnel, draft and enforce policy and more. From medical management positions, ambitious healthcare administrators can reach extremely lucrative roles within the healthcare system.

However, most healthcare settings expect something from administrators before they are qualified to serve in medical management roles: certification. The Certified Medical Manager (CMM) credential requires at least two years of experience in healthcare as well as at least 12 post-secondary credits in healthcare or business, and it is essential for progressing along the healthcare administration career path.

Healthcare Compliance

Healthcare is a heavily regulated industry — for good reason. The government needs to make certain that healthcare providers are capable of providing safe care to all patients, which involves protecting their physical, mental and digital well-being. However, the regulatory landscape is diverse and complex, which means that many healthcare providers are not properly equipped to understand and uphold regulations without support from their administrators. Fortunately, administrators can demonstrate their proficiency in the regulatory compliance field by becoming Certified in Healthcare Compliance. The CHC credential involves an exam on existing regulations and processes for maintaining compliance.

Billing and Coding

Medical billing and coding is a field focused on translating utterly unique patient experiences within the healthcare system into uniform and universally understood alphanumeric codes. These codes help insurance companies and healthcare providers issue accurate bills to patients and maintain clearer and more concise medical records. There are thousands of different codes, so it takes training for medical coders to become efficient and effective in this essential task. Through medical billing and coding online programs, aspiring health administrators can gain a useful credential that is in demand across the healthcare industry, in private practices, hospitals and insurance companies alike, which can jumpstart their health administration careers.

Health Information Systems

Modern healthcare doesn’t exist without meticulously collected health information, but maintaining all that data in an organized and secure fashion is not easy. It falls to health administrators to develop and manage systems for storing health information in ways that allow providers and patients to access and understand it quickly but prevent bad actors from using sensitive data for nefarious purposes.

It should come as little surprise, then, that a certification in health information systems can be extremely valuable to healthcare administrators. There are a few different healthcare information certifications to choose from, but among the most popular is the Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS). CPHIMS is flexible in its eligibility requirements, allowing applicants to have a mixture of academic and real-world experience in healthcare and information and management systems, but there is a mandatory exam on essential knowledge and skills in the field.

Risk Management

Healthcare is never completely without risk, but healthcare organizations need strategies for reducing risk as much as possible to keep both providers and patients safe. Healthcare administrators assume some of the responsibility for risk mitigation, and they can improve their ability to keep risk within a reasonable range by becoming properly certified in risk management.

This certification is often a prerequisite for some of the highest-level roles in healthcare administration, but beginner healthcare administrators can benefit greatly by gaining exposure to risk management strategies early in their careers. The best risk management certification one can earn is the Certified Professional in Healthcare Risk Management (CPHRM), which demands extensive education and experience as well as an exam.

To rise through the ranks of healthcare administration, you need to put effort into improving your knowledge and skills in all aspects of healthcare and business management. These certifications can help you demonstrate your proficiency in leading a healthcare organization to success.