Source BLS

Highest Paying Cities for Healthcare Administrators

The BLS lists the following cities as the highest-paid for healthcare administrators: 

Part Three Healthcare Administration Salaries by Place of Employment

According to the BLS, the highest-paid healthcare administrators work for the government, while the lowest-paid work in nursing and residential care facilities. The BLS lists place of occupation and salary as follows for medical and health services managers:

1. Government: Average salary of $111,520
2. Hospitals: Average salary of $110,430
3. Outpatient care centers: Average salary of $95,320
4. Physician offices: Average salary of $91,600
5. Nursing and residential care facilities: Average salary of $86,820

Part Four How to Increase Your Salary as a Healthcare Administrator

Although on average, you can expect to earn a reasonable salary as a healthcare administrator, there are always ways that you can increase your salary. The best way to increase your salary in any role is to increase your value by adding additional skills to your resume. You can do this by:

1. Pursuing advanced education: For instance, if you are a nurse looking to become a department manager, you can pursue your MSN or MBA in order to gain more managerial and leadership skills.
2. Finding a mentor: If there is someone in your field that you aspire to be like, speak up! Ask them if they would be willing to take you on as a mentor so you can learn from them. 
3. Learning advanced skills: Even if you don’t pursue another separate degree, you can add technical skills or certifications to your resume that can help increase your value as an administrator. 
4. Get involved: Whether it’s a new field you’d like to move into or an advancement in your current role, it can help to get involved in new ways. That might mean volunteering to supervise the team leadership conference or signing up for more community events–there are many different options you could pursue depending on your current role and where you would like to advance to in order to raise your salary. 

>> Show Me Online Healthcare Administration Programs

Part Five How to Get Started in Healthcare Administration

If you’d like to pursue a career in healthcare administration, it can help to have an idea of where you would like to go with your carer. For instance, if you’d like to eventually be a nurse manager, you’ll need to go the RN-BSN-MSN route. However, your career path for a health informatics manager will look much different. 

1.) Earn Your Degree

If you aren’t entirely sure where you’d like your career to take you, however, don’t worry––you can still earn a basic degree that can open up many doors for you as a healthcare administrator. For instance, you can focus on pursuing a Bachelors and Masters degree in:

1. Public Health
2. Health Administration
3. Health Management
4. Business

2.) Get Certified

Along with the right degree, you’ll also need to gain experience in your field and it can’t hurt to earn additional certification along the way either. 

For example, the BLS lists several different certifications that can be helpful for health administrators, including:

1. Certificate in medical management from the Professional Association of Health Care Office Management
2. Health information management certification from the American Health Information Management Association
3. Certified Nursing Home Administrator and Certified Assisted Living Administrator specializations through the American College of Health Care Administrators.

Part Six Healthcare Administration Resources

As you pursue a career in healthcare administration, you’ll want to stay equipped with tools to turn to when you need them. Nurse.org has plenty of resources and guides to help you along the way: 

• The complete career guide to healthcare administration 
• How one intern worked his way up to hospital CEO 
• How to earn your MBA in healthcare management
• Top 10 online healthcare administration degrees (with high graduation rates)
• Information on a Masters in Healthcare Administration (MHA)
• The complete career guide on healthcare management
• Healthcare administration degrees
• Choosing an MBA vs. MSN as a nurse
• Highest-paying healthcare administration jobs

Part Seven FAQs

• How much do healthcare administrators make?
  • A hospital CEO may make well into the millions. Many healthcare administrators make around $100,000, however. 
• What does a healthcare administrator do?
  • A healthcare administrator works on the administrative side of healthcare as opposed to the direct patient care side. Health administrators typically have responsibilities that include managing teams, overseeing employees, dealing with budgets, and outlining fiscal responsibilities, as well as job-specific duties. A healthcare administrator in a hospital, for instance, will have different responsibilities than a healthcare administrator at an IT company overseeing medical records. 
• What are the highest-paying healthcare administrator jobs?
  • The highest-paying healthcare administrator jobs include medical managers, hospital administrators, insurance directors, nursing home directors, and information technology managers.