Healthcare Management vs. Healthcare Administration: What Are the Differences?

November 4, 2024

healthcare management vs. healthcare administration

The field of healthcare offers a wide array of career opportunities, including everything from doctors and nurses to marketing roles, IT specialists, and management and administration careers. In fact, there are many jobs behind the scenes that help with a medical facility’s operations that are a vital part of their success. Below, we take a closer look at two of these roles, examining the differences between healthcare management and healthcare administration, to help uncover what career choice may be the best fit for you.

What to Expect in Healthcare Management vs. Healthcare Administration Roles

Looking specifically at healthcare management vs. healthcare administration, management ensures that medical settings remain efficient, profitable and productive. These types of roles focus on the daily operation of clinics, hospitals, and other medical organizations. Their ultimate goal is to help facilities achieve better results and deliver optimal patient care. Those in such roles focus on the “big picture” and will often have backgrounds in business, healthcare, or data analytics.

Some specific roles can include:

  • Hospital administrator – As a hospital administrator, you may plan activities within each department, evaluate all staff, and create or maintain policies, all with the goal of ensuring that a facility functions properly and that everyone receives support. Administrators play crucial roles in the functionality and delivery of health services within a hospital.
  • Executive director – As an executive director, you’ll find yourself shaping the direction of a hospital or other medical facility. Working alongside professionals like physicians and nursing executives, you’ll identify and implement any opportunities for optimizing performance, whether they’re related to operational or financial matters.
  • Social welfare administrator – Within this position, you’ll create policy and direct programs that include the care delivered in facilities, as well as confirm accreditation and ensure legal compliance.
  • Health advocate – A health advocate provides key services for individuals and their loved ones. Some ways they may help include researching treatment options and explaining the pros and cons, keeping track of treatment plans, organizing and reviewing billing, and helping facilitate better access to healthcare.
  • Practice administrator – Practice administrators oversee the daily operations of medical practices. In this role, you may find yourself in hospitals, clinics, surgery centers, offices, or group practices. Some duties may include creating schedules, training or supervising, handling insurance disputes, and delivering excellent customer service.

Healthcare administration, on the other hand, entails many managerial tasks. People in administration roles don’t typically focus on the overall business aspects of a facility, instead concentrating on directing the staff within a department. Some roles within this area include:

  • Clinical director – This is a detailed profession, responsible for overseeing key operations pertaining to the treatment of patients. In this role, you’ll supervise daily operations, hire and evaluate personnel, implement business strategies, and ensure a facility is compliant with state and federal laws.
  • Health services manager – Within this role, you’ll find yourself interacting with patients, medical staff, and insurance agents to ensure care is delivered promptly and accurately. This role not only necessitates strong people skills, but it also requires capabilities with technical operations management.
  • Office manager – As an office manager, you’ll cover the nonclinical side of operating medical facilities. Some duties you may find yourself fulfilling include those related to front-desk customer service and the securing of medical records.
  • Hospice care director – A hospice care director supervises, manages, and directs hospice care plans, which include home care, in-patient care, and bereavement follow up. In this role, you’ll also provide input for strategic decisions and develop programs related to hospice care.
  • Medical records manager – In this role, you will manage, search through, and secure any patient medical records on behalf of hospitals, medical centers, or any other facility responsible for patient care. More specifically, you’ll supervise employees utilizing medical data, manage record databases and keep files secure, and add to patient files whenever information needs updated or changed.

Differences Between Healthcare Management and Healthcare Administration Job Roles

While both of these fields are part of healthcare settings and require an understanding of business, there are certain key responsibilities you can expect in each role. When it comes to the differences between healthcare management and healthcare administration, healthcare management responsibilities include:

  • Examining and supporting an organization’s needs
  • Coordinating any outsourced services
  • Designing emergency protocols and procedures
  • Creating business plans and determining financial strategies
  • Ensuring that an organization is compliant with guidelines
  • Defining an organization’s values, vision, and overall mission
  • Identifying strategies that help minimize costs and boost performance

Healthcare administration duties, meanwhile, may vary depending on the employer, work environment, or experience. With that being said, some tasks that are common for administrators include:

  • Managing departments within larger organizations or medical facilities
  • Handling staffing issues and creating employee schedules
  • Corresponding with HR and accounting departments to optimize efficiency
  • Overseeing and leading staff and departments
  • Monitoring and replenishing inventory
  • Taking steps to ensure compliance with federal and state regulations

Interested in Healthcare Management? Choose P.I.T.

We’re proud to offer a healthcare management associate degree that includes a medical billing and coding academy, and our degree can prepare you for many of the essential roles in healthcare listed above. Plus, our healthcare coding courses are offered entirely online, giving students the ability to take courses at their own pace.

In addition to the flexibility our program offers, other benefits include:

Contact Us to Learn More

After examining the healthcare management vs. healthcare administration differences, if management seems appealing, please be sure to reach out! We are more than happy to discuss our degree in more detail and answer any questions you may have.