While most patients come into contact primarily with doctors and nurses, hospitals are full of support staff, administrators and other personnel who ensure the proper function of the hospital and delivery of care to the patient. Healthcare administrators oversee all of these people, medical staff included. Their job is to ensure that the hospital runs smoothly, that it meets its goals and that it remains open to continue serving patients.

What Healthcare Administrators at Hospitals Do

Healthcare administrators have a wide range of duties and responsibilities. In addition to ensuring that doctors and nurses are providing adequate patient care, administrators must tend to the financial health of the hospital, ensure compliance with legal requirements, organize and maintain records, create work schedules and engage in recruitment, hiring and training. Healthcare administrators must be liaisons between the hospital and various people, such as between governing boards and medical staff, or department heads and legal. In teaching hospitals, administrators are often responsible in part for the education of new doctors, too.

Healthcare administration requires numerous meetings, fundraising events and conventions, and administrators must keep up to date on current medical trends and technology, medical law and the people they must keep in contact with in the field. An administrator plans budgets and sets and enforces policy within the hospital, evaluates doctors and other hospital staff and helps to develop new medical procedures.

Essential Skills for Healthcare Administration

It’s essential in healthcare administration to have a broad array of skills. Administrators must have solid medical knowledge, but healthcare administration also requires excellent organizational, intrapersonal, analytical and leadership skills. Healthcare administrators are often promoted from other medical or administrative positions because a strong foundation of work experience is essential. In order to manage a hospital effectively, an administrator must know the people who work there, the policies and quirks of the hospital and the hospital’s needs and goals.

Critical thinking skills and problem solving skills are necessary to the job, and a good healthcare administrator knows how to lead and delegate when his or her own knowledge comes up short. Administrators must know their staff and their capabilities, and must be able to select the right person for the job.

Part of healthcare administration is also acting as a role model within the hospital. A high degree of motivation and interest as well as strong ethical principles and solid competence in the field are all important parts of leading by example.

Fostering Improvement through Good Healthcare Administration

Hospitals are increasingly complex organizations. Healthcare administrators are responsible for minimizing the impact that mistakes have on the hospital and its staff, and there are many other ways administrators can foster improvements within their hospitals.

Embrace Technology

Many hospitals are moving to embrace electronic health records as a way to create more accuracy and consistency in handling patient information. Improving cybersecurity within a hospital makes it less vulnerable to hacking and unintentionally distributed malware, while data from wearable sensors can provide accurate, up-to-date medical information on an outpatient basis. Researching new drugs can improve standards of care, and hospital infections can be reduced with the introduction of blue-violet LED light fixtures, which provide continual disinfection.

Incentivize Outcomes

The single most important accomplishment for a hospital is good outcomes for patients. By incentivizing good patient outcomes and ethical care, healthcare administrators can foster real and positive change.

Promote Process Discipline

While working in a hospital comes with some amount of thinking on one’s feet, there are always areas of the hospital’s day-to-day running where processes can be managed and improved. Focusing on efficiency within these processes and ensuring that training is consistent across staff can reduce waste and potential for human error.

Train Teams, Not Individuals

Hospital employees rarely interact with a patient in a vacuum, and nearly every hospital employee must learn to rely on other employees. By shifting the focus of training away from individual training and toward training teams of people to work together, healthcare administrators can build team cohesion and create bonding opportunities. They can teach team members to understand and rely upon each other’s skills and expertise. This, in turn, builds trust and synergy among team members, allowing the team as a whole to operate with more efficiency and accuracy.

Salaries for Healthcare Administrators

A healthcare administrator’s median salary is around $104,000 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with a lower range around $57,000 and an upper range around $172,000 during 2016. These salaries are significantly higher than the average salary in America, and healthcare administrators who manage state, private and local hospitals tend to be on the upper end of the salary range.

Demand for medical and health services managers is expected to increase by about 17 percent by 2024, which equates to roughly 56,000 more jobs in the field. To meet this increased demand, hospitals are looking for highly qualified individuals to become administrators.

There are a variety of occupations available to skilled healthcare administrators with an MBA with a specialization in healthcare administration. Health information managers are responsible for spreading medical information within an organization, and are often responsible for disseminating information from the hospital’s board of directors. The CFO for a hospital, on the other hand, takes responsibility for managing the hospital’s operating costs and budget, and commands an even higher median annual wage of around $181,000.

Pursuing a Career in Healthcare Administration

An online MBA with a specialization in healthcare administration from Concordia University Texas can make the difference. Learn about healthcare strategy, policy trends and quality methods in healthcare at a pace that works for your busy life.

Additional source: A Day in the Life of a Hospital Administrator, The Princeton Review

The post Healthcare Administration 101 appeared first on Concordia University Texas.

On Oct. 1, 2015, medical coding in the United States changed forever when the entire healthcare industry shifted from using ICD-9 to ICD-10 codes, affecting providers, insurance companies and patients. What exactly does medical coding involve? And why was the shift so important?

The History and State of Medical Coding

According to the World Health Organization, the history of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) dates to the 19th century. Leaders in medicine, including famous British nurse Florence Nightingale, proposed using a uniform list of causes of death and other health statistics. In 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) was established and took ownership of the ICD system. Ever since, WHO has convened international conferences for revising and updating the ICD.

The ninth version, ICD-9, was adopted in the 1970s; ICD-10 was adopted in the 1990s. More than 100 countries use ICD to report mortality data. The ICD system defines diseases, disorders, injuries and other health conditions. “It allows the world to compare and share health information using a common language,” WHO explains.

The Differences Between ICD-9 and ICD-10

In the United States, ICD-9 was used to code and classify mortality data from death certificates until 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s when ICD-10 began to be used for mortality coding.

The United States also used ICD-9 to develop a system for assigning codes to diagnoses and procedures in clinical settings. ICD-9 contained about 13,000 diagnosis codes and 3,000 procedure codes; codes had a five-character limit. In contrast, ICD-10 contains approximately 68,000 diagnosis codes and 87,000 procedure codes, with a seven-character limit.

“Diagnosis and procedure codes are a way for physicians, hospitals and other providers to exchange information with health plans to describe patient conditions and the services provided to treat those conditions,” the American Hospital Association says. “They are embedded in nearly every clinical and billing operation nationwide. Diagnosis codes are an important piece of information to describe patients’ conditions, justify the services provided and demonstrate medical necessity.”

Difficulties With ICD-9

There grew to be several problems with ICD-9. The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) points out that the vast changes in medicine and technology since the 1970s made ICD-9 outdated. And many years after ICD-9 was developed, it began to be used in the processing of insurance claims, which was problematic.

AHIMA describes numerous benefits of the ICD-10 code set. These include:

• Medical coding can be complete, accurate and detailed.
• Healthcare providers can be specific in documenting the severity and complexity of diseases.
• Payers and providers can save money through cost analysis.
• Healthcare organizations and professionals worldwide can exchange meaningful data and share best practices.

In summary, ICD-10 provides “payers, policy makers, and providers with more detailed information for establishing appropriate reimbursement rates, evaluating and improving quality of patient care, improving efficiencies in healthcare delivery, reducing healthcare costs, and effectively monitoring resource and service utilization,” AHIMA maintains.

Still, the United States was slow to implement ICD-10 compared to some other countries. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services set an implementation deadline of Oct. 1, 2013, only to push it back to Oct. 1, 2014. The government pushed it back yet again to Oct. 1, 2015.

The Impact of ICD-10 Implementation

Although experienced medical coders were able to become proficient in ICD-10 fairly easily, significant training was necessary for healthcare providers and payers.

Impact on Nurses and Doctors

ICD-10 requires careful clinical documentation by nurses and doctors. “Accurate and descriptive nursing documentation will become even more important to ensure that when the medical records staff assign codes, the ICD-10 codes are as accurate and as precise as they can be,” McKnight’s Long-Term Care News reports. Nurses and doctors may have to take extra time to ensure accuracy. Coders and others may need to assist nurses and doctors with being aware of what documentation is necessary. Employers will likely offer ongoing training to ensure healthcare providers are documenting correctly.

Impact on Healthcare Administrators

As changes take place across the healthcare industry, administrators will need to remain patient and flexible. Delays with insurance claims are expected. With proper planning and coordination, administrators can provide guidance because of their knowledge of subjects like quality management and information technology.

The Future of Healthcare

The implementation of ICD-10 should have a profound, positive impact on the healthcare industry and patient care. It is imperative for healthcare professionals to understand how medical coding affects the future of the industry. If you’re interested in pursuing a career in nursing or healthcare administration, Concordia University Texas offers online nursing degrees as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Administration. You can gain the tools you need to succeed in the ever-changing world of healthcare. Learn more about these fully online degrees today.

The post How the Shift From ICD-9 to ICD-10 Is Changing Medical Coding appeared first on Concordia University Texas.

Doctors walking around in their crisp white coats, nurses running from station to station and responding to emergency calls, technicians manning sophisticated medical machines… these are the images that come to mind when you think of a career in healthcare.

But have you ever wondered who the force behind the smooth functioning of a healthcare unit is? Who are the people who work behind the scenes to manage a hospital’s finances, hire the best talent, implement policies, create work schedules, etc. – all the activities that ensure patients receive the best possible care?

That’s the job of a healthcare administrator (also known as health services manager). According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s description, healthcare administrators plan, direct, and coordinate medical and health services.

If a career in healthcare administration sounds like something you would be interested in, you should know that it is one of the most promising profession in one of the most sought-after industries in the country (and globally).

Why choose a career in healthcare?

For someone who’s at the brink of choosing a career path, it may not come as a total surprise that healthcare is a booming industry. If your parents, teachers, career counselors, cousins, neighbors, are nudging you towards a career in healthcare, they have good reason to do so.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, the healthcare and social assistance sector is projected to add 5 million jobs in the 2012-22 decade, accounting for nearly one-third of the total projected increase in jobs.

So, you know there are more than enough jobs in the healthcare industry, but why should you consider a career in healthcare administration specifically?

That’s because even within the thriving healthcare industry, healthcare administration has one of the most promising job outlooks. According to the BLS, employment of healthcare administrators is projected to grow by 23 percent from 2012 to 2022 at a much faster rate than the average for ALL occupations.

As for where you can work as a healthcare administration, there are plenty of options that you can choose from. From hospitals and physician offices to working with geriatrics at a nursing care facilities and outpatient care centers – all types of healthcare units require the services of healthcare administrators to function smoothly. Job opportunities also exist in diagnostic centers, psychiatric hospitals, and rehabilitation centers for substance abuse.

Attractive compensation

A neat paycheck is another factor that makes a career in healthcare administration so attractive. According to payscale.com data, the median annual income of a healthcare administrator stands at a whopping $97,000.

Compensation ranges from $49,000 to $181,000 per year and depends to a great extent on the experience level and location of the candidate. For example, payscale pegs entry-level compensation for healthcare administrators at $75,000 per year.

In addition to great earnings, healthcare administrators are, in most cases, also entitled to medical, dental, and vision benefits.

But forget about the compensation and benefits for a moment. Keep aside the ample opportunities and job security. Is it still as good a profession?

Yes, it is. That’s because as a part of the healthcare fraternity, you can play your part in improving people’s lives day after day after day. Can anything be more satisfying than that?

If you’re convinced that a career in healthcare administration is an ideal fit for you, we at Concordia University Texas, offer just the right program to help you achieve your goal. Enroll for our healthcare administration online degree now and prepare for ‘a booming career in a booming industry’.

The post Healthcare Admin: A Booming Career in a Booming Industry appeared first on Concordia University Texas.