What jobs can you get with an associates degree in healthcare administration

If you aspire to work in health services but don’t want to work as a clinical employee, healthcare administration is a great career option. A healthcare administration degree allows students who are interested in the medical field to work in essential roles that focus on patient care. Keep reading to learn about ten jobs you can get with a degree in healthcare administration. 

1. Office Manager

One career path that a healthcare administration degree can lead to is the management of a medical office. This role entails responsibility for the daily operations of a physician’s office, including creating and tracking the office budget. An office manager must be skilled in billing, coding, collections and appointment making.

An office manager with a healthcare administration degree can work either in a public medical office or for a private practice. To pursue this career, it’s necessary to earn a bachelor’s degree. While you may start in any entry-level office position, the knowledge and skills from your degree program — combined with a good work ethic — can help you advance more quickly into a management position.

2. Insurance Specialist

Healthcare administration graduates who are interested in the financial side of the medical field may find a satisfying career working with companies as insurance specialists or medical reimbursement specialists. These professionals help patients navigate and select payment plans for their medical bills and work with insurance companies to determine billing and policy needs.

Students earning this degree who are interested in becoming insurance specialists may also want to earn a minor that relates to business or finance. This would be helpful not only for launching a career in insurance but also for potentially opening an agency of their own.

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3. Consultant

Businesses that provide health services may not need to hire a healthcare administrator right way. Instead, they may choose to hire a consultant who can help them identify the services they need to offer. As a consultant, you would analyze data and present findings to clients to help them understand how to run their businesses.

For this career, it is helpful to have a solid understanding of business concepts as well as strong communication and presentation skills. As a student, you could acquire these skills by adding a minor in business to your degree in healthcare administration. Like insurance specialists, consultants can open their own firm when they are confident that they can obtain and satisfy clients on their own.

As a consultant, you can even work in health law, ensuring that clients are meeting local, state and federal rules while navigating contracts and other legal documents. This role entails representing clients like hospitals or healthcare facilities in legal disputes, so a good law degree is essential.1

4. Human Resource Manager

Large medical facilities employ a lot of people, and human resource managers are needed to hire, train and support all these employees. A healthcare administration graduate working in human resources works with both hiring managers and potential candidates to fill a company’s open positions. The role also includes supporting employees through training and management of payroll and medical benefits.

While this job may not at first seem healthcare-specific, your healthcare administration skills will shine through as you support employees through their training and by understanding the individual needs they have as healthcare workers. Your knowledge of the medical field will allow you to better assist your employees in solving their problems effectively.

5. Social and Community Service Manager

Positions that directly help members of your community represent another rewarding career path. A social and community service manager works closely with other healthcare professionals, social workers and other community organizers to improve conditions for the community. A professional in this role creates and coordinates programs that serve families and individuals in the community.2

In this career path, it might be beneficial to have taken a few classes in social work or sociology, but it’s not necessary to earn more than a bachelor’s degree in healthcare administration. If you want to advance quickly in this career and you enjoy the social work aspect, you can always earn a master’s in social work after graduating with your undergraduate degree.

6. Pharmaceutical Product Manager

The field of health services isn’t just about the services provided but also about products, including pharmaceutical drugs. As a pharmaceutical product manager, you would be responsible for supervising teams of professionals producing these products, from the conception stage through marketing.1

While earning a healthcare administration degree can help you start out in pharmaceuticals, additional classes or degrees can help prepare you for higher-level positions in the field. For example, a science degree could be beneficial if you are interested in the creation of pharmaceuticals. If you want to pursue the marketing side of this field, you might consider a business degree.

7. Health Informatics Professional

Health informatics is data-driven work concerned with the data and information delivered within an organization such as a hospital or other health-related organization.1 People in health informatics can conduct research and apply their findings to improve processes and propose solutions to technical, clinical and organizational challenges. Health informatics professionals also impact enhanced delivery of care, improved health outcomes and advanced patient education. Since this job involves a lot of data input and interpretation, strong technology skills would be a further asset on this career path.

8. Health Department Professional

If you want to make a difference on a larger scale, working in a government health department can help you accomplish that goal. As a health department professional, you can work at a federal, state or local level. You would be responsible for leading efforts to keep the spread of disease to a minimum in your community.

A governmental health services career is about serving the community and promoting incentives and programs that ensure that people keep health in mind as they go about their day. This role is like that of a community service manager but has the potential for focusing on a much bigger scale than the surrounding community. For example, some professionals who work at the federal level can be seen spearheading investigations into diseases and becoming advocates for health initiatives at the national level.

9. University Staff/Faculty

As in many other professional fields, those with a degree in healthcare administration can choose to follow a university career path. Universities are made up of large teams of professionals responsible for everything from lectures to janitorial services. There are many options for health service professionals within a university, including the following occupations:

Clinical Placement Coordinator

A clinical placement coordinator is essential in any healthcare education program. Professionals in this role are responsible for managing and tracking the overall student clinical experience. In addition to helping students manage expectations and requirements, they partner with students and faculty to find the best placement option for each student.

Clinical placement coordinators must have solid communication skills as they are in constant communication with clinics as well as university faculty and students. Usually, candidates with a healthcare administration degree and experience are preferred, and prior experience in business is also helpful. Professionalism in all interactions is essential, along with strong organizational skills to keep track of student placements and related documentation.

Campus Health Services Worker

For those with a healthcare administration degree, another interesting university job is working with campus health. Though campus health may initially bring on-campus nurses to mind, there is more to it than providing care for students.

While it’s important for students to be able to get proper care on campus, it’s also important that they know how to stay healthy in the first place. Educating students on staying healthy could include on-campus healthcare campaigns to inform them of ways to stay safe during flu season or to choose nutritious campus food. However it is done, keeping students healthy is a top priority for campus health services professionals, whether they have direct daily interaction with students or not.

Assistant Professor/Professor

The career most people think of in the context of university jobs is likely that of a professor or assistant professor. Professors are needed in almost every field, including health services. A healthcare administration degree is a good starting point on the way to teaching students in the healthcare field, but becoming a professor requires work experience and additional degrees, including a doctoral degree, so make sure you know all the steps to becoming a college professor before you embark on your journey. 

Despite the hard work, professors have a rewarding career. They have the opportunity to teach and shape how others understand a subject they are passionate about. They are also usually required to contribute academic publications to their field, so their research passions find an outlet through writing even as they continue teaching.

10. Administrative Assistant

A degree in healthcare administration is optimal if you want to work as an administrative assistant. Administrative assistants in health services can be found in a variety of settings, including nursing homes, hospitals, clinics and even home healthcare organizations. As home nursing care grows in popularity, so does the need for administrative assistants to help provide this care. Home healthcare organizations need administrative assistants to run their business operations, ensuring that the services provided follow state and federal guidelines. Administrative assistants are also responsible for ordering supplies and handling all scheduling and budgeting needs.

Grand Canyon University’s College of Nursing and Health Care Professions is pleased to offer the Bachelor of Science in Health Care Administration Degree and the Master of Science in Healthcare Administration alongside other distinguished degrees that can help you obtain a rewarding career in the medical field. Click the Request Info button at the top of your page to learn more about applying to GCU. 

Retrieved from:

1Healthcare Management Degree Guide, 5 High-Paying Jobs in Healthcare Management in June 2021 

2Public Health Online, A Guide to Careers in Health Administration in June 2021

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Grand Canyon University. Any sources cited were accurate as of the publish date.

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