What comes to mind when you think of Healthcare Administration? A few options could include: answering phones, typing emails, and filing reports & documents. While these are all important tasks that a Healthcare Administrator performs on a daily basis … the position is much more complex than that and can be a rewarding career. In this article, discover the typical working day for a healthcare administrator and how they play an important role in patient care.

A day in the life of a Healthcare Administrator begins with checking voicemail messages from the previous day (after grabbing some coffee of course!) and handling them accordingly. “Handling accordingly” could mean anything from returning a patients call, scheduling an appointment, or calling multiple insurance providers to negotiate medical coverage.

The rest of the day will be filled with responding to requests via phone, email, fax or mail, promptly and politely. Administrators are also responsible for creating, printing, organizing and filing a variety of documents and reports for the business or practice that they work for.

Throughout the day administrators schedule appointments, process payments, deal with accounts receivable and make bank deposits. Many administrators are responsible for inventory as well as simple accounting tasks for the clinic they work in. Healthcare administrators need a variety of organizational skills in order to keep up with the fast-paced environment found in hospitals and medical clinics.

On top of the regular day-to-day responsibilities, administrators often act as a support for the other healthcare professionals that they work with. Supporting their co-workers includes helping them with paperwork, performing data entry, relaying messages to others, running errands, giving advice and listening to them express their feelings about personal matters. By taking a load off physicians and nurses, it allows them to focus on their patients and less on paperwork – which results in better care for the patients.

Healthcare administrators are required to be experts regarding the computer and appointment systems that the office uses. Since healthcare administrators use software systems all day, every day, it is extremely important that they understand how it works so they can work quickly and efficiently to keep the work day running smoothly. Strong knowledge and familiarly is also important because sometimes systems fail or act in unexpected ways – the faster the problem is resolved the faster operations can be back up and running. The administrator is often required to help and/or train their coworkers with these systems because they are often the only in-house employees with extensive knowledge of how the system works.

Normally the first point of contact, when entering a Healthcare facility, is the administrator.
Therefore, in addition to the tasks above, the administrator is also responsible for greeting and pleasantly checking-in patients, answering questions, accepting deliveries, directing patients in the proper manner and often times are required to chit chat with patients while they wait for their appointment. Healthcare administrators must always have their “game face on” in order to set a good first impression when new patients walk through the door.

At first glance it may seem like a Healthcare Administrator’s day is filled with answering phones but as you can see, it is much more than that. Some even go so far as to say a Healthcare Administrator is the glue that keeps a clinic and team together.

The following skills and attributes are beneficial for anybody thinking of making healthcare administration their career.

• Customer Service Skills
• Social Skills
• Organization & Time Management
• Business Technology Management
• Multi-tasking
• Professionalism
• Finance & accounting

If you enjoy working in a fast paced environment where you will be rewarded for excellent customer service and organization skills, then consider a career in healthcare administration.

Written by: Leah Bryden

Leah is an orthopedic bracing specialist at the Arthritis & Injury Care Centre. Prior to working at the Arthritis & Injury Care Centre, Leah completed her Bachelor of Kinesiology and then went on to become a Massage Therapist.

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A Day in the life of a Healthcare Administrator