How to Become a Health Care Administrator

Once you learn how to become a health care administrator and take the necessary steps to enter the specific career of your choice, there will be a world of job opportunities at your fingertips. Health care administrators and managers make up a huge portion of the workforce in consulting firms, insurance organizations, hospitals, public health agencies, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and other medically-related organizations. As a healthcare administrator you will be able to carry out long-term goals, create and implement policy, manage personnel, oversee both capital and operating budgets and more. So how do you enter these important professions?

The first step to becoming a health care administrator is earning a college degree. You will need to earn at least a bachelor's degree in business, gerontology, health sciences, public administration or social services. There are also master's degree programs that are very useful for these careers, such as the MBA in Healthcare Management.

The degree does not guarantee a job, though, so you'll need to get some experience. If you can find work in a healthcare facility, nursing home, social services organization, home health care company or hospice center in any capacity, from nursing to administration, you will be a better job candidate once you finish school. Some jobs will even require several years of entry-level experience or at least one year of administrative or clinical management experience before you can apply. Healthcare administration jobs in nursing and rehabilitation centers also require passage of the state and national Nursing Home Administrator licensing examination. Background checks are standard in these occupations as well.

As a healthcare administrator you may have to earn continuing education credits to remain employed. If your job requires any sort of professional license, you can assume you will need to apply for this license as a term of employment. All this hard work should pay off, though. Salaries vary depending on experience, location, specific job title and the type of organization you work for, but you can expect to be compensated well. While an office manager might only start off earning around $30,000, the average salary for this job reaches $65,000, and hospital administrators can earn as much as $130,000 with diligence and advancement.