My Experience || Online Healthcare Administration Degree Masters

 

Online Health Administration masters programs :

Hi guys what is up welcome back to my Website so a while ago like a month or two ago i posted a post about why i chose to be a hospital administrator and holy crap you guys have a lot of questions and i totally get it because there is not a lot of people on internet at least on the internet that talk about or do health care administration i know when i kind of decided on it it was kind of like a win decision because i read a few things online and i was like this sounds like what i want to do and i just went for it so i’m happy to answer all of you guys questions of course i have like 500 comments on that post with just questions i’ve gotten countless dms and i’ve responded to all of them absolutely love it i want to help you guys because i totally get there’s not a lot of information but i thought it would be fun and helpful if i just did a whole post answering some very common questions so that if you guys send me a question i can send you over this post if your question is in here so that is exactly what i’m going to be doing today if you are new here make sure that you subscribe 

I post vlogs fashion content lifestyle content grad school content all the time so i post twice a week so make sure that you subscribe to stick around and see all of my upcoming content cheers this is kombucha i’ve just been like drinking liquids all day like i had coffee then i had a smoothie and i’m having kombucha so health without further ado i’m going to pull up the post i’ve prepped for this none surprise surprise but what i’m going to do is just pull up the post and i’m going to answer questions you guys have asked me in no particular order and i also want to put a disclaimer out there because i’ve had a lot of people ask me questions like and i just want it to be known that i am also navigating this right now i’m a first year graduate student with the mha i’m finishing up my first year about to register for my second year classes definitely don’t know everything i’m kind of figuring it out with you guys but i do think i have some advice especially if you haven’t started the program or you’re just interested in the program i definitely have some insight but i do not know everything

So definitely take it when i say with a grain of salt and there will probably be a few questions where i’m like i don’t know the answer and that’s okay because i don’t know everything anyway let’s go ahead and get into this these questions how different is schoolwork in grad school versus undergrad definitely very different personally i prefer it better so in grad school you are less of a number in undergrad for me i felt like i was very much just another number i had classes of 200 100 300 people and the professor never knew who i was nothing like that you did a lot of exams and for the most part they don’t really care how you’re doing unless you go and speak to them my grad school experience has been completely different you go through all two years with basically the same people because you’re in the same cohort so there’s about 30 of us so we all know each other we all talk all the time on groupme and your professors also know you because it’s a class of 30. 

I think that is a really good pro about grad school also most of your tests are either projects so like group projects or their opennote again because it’s not like college where it’s like spit it out back to me it’s you’re actually trying to learn and be hands-on because you are literally two years if you’re just starting from going into this career path so it’s much more hands-on and much more niche than colleges what kinds of things do you learn in your business and finance classes so i am in my first actual accounting class which is definitely a finance class and we are learning a lot about balance sheets hospital budgets hiring and firing so things with you have to deal with a budget obviously if you’re going to buy new equipment if you’re going to hire somebody new so we’re learning a lot about profit and loss and how you can afford to hire somebody or buy new equipment and then also what to do if you can’t afford that i’ll pull up my class schedule for you guys actually really quick and just kind of like tell you what i learned in each class okay so i’m going to tell you guys really quick what classes i take because i have had a lot of people ask me this question 

So in my fall semester first year i took introduction to u.s healthcare systems population health and disease decision analysis and quality and outcomes management and healthcare we had an intro class we had a class about population health which is public health we had a class about decision analysis which is statistics and then quality and outcomes management which quality is a huge sector of hospital management because hospitals have to be held to a certain standard and quality standard in order to be able to run this semester i’m taking accounting for healthcare management organization behavior in healthcare and organization behavior we learn a lot about how to be a leader how to prosper in the political environment that is healthcare administration health law and ethics which i love this class we are learning about hipaa malpractice suits we go through a lot of case briefs it’s a really fun class because you really do need to know the laws behind healthcare and then an elective and my elective i’m taking is interprofessional collaboration in the fall i’m going gonna be taking marketing and healthcare i’m so excited for this class 

Because i think marketing is what i’m like if i could pick a dream career for me it would be marketing and healthcare so like marketing hospital marketing private practice human resource management healthcare finance health policy development and then my last semester i’ll take health economics information resource management strategic management of health services organizations and an elective i can tell you about the classes from first year like i did i don’t know quite yet about my second year classes but that’s kind of like a plan of study for a full-time two-year program someone asked me is there a reason you didn’t accept the online schools that you went to so some online schools that i applied to were university of cincinnati appalachian state university in north carolina online um george mason and then my school i think i only applied to four i can’t really remember and my school was the only one i that was in person so honestly the reason i didn’t end up going with the online schools is because the ones that i had were not cami c-a-h-m-e accredited which is huge so i ended up between where i’m at unc charlotte and app state that’s the other one i was considering because of in-state tuition and i learned that app state was not coming accredited and that’s basically the accreditation that recognizes the healthcare administration program 

So you can get a health care administration degree somewhere but if it’s not at an accredited university then some people might not take your degree seriously so that is some advice that i would give you guys is make sure the program you’re looking into is c-a-h-m-e kami accredited i love this question this person asked me how do you feel about the stigma of non-clinical workers holding management positions in hospitals she says i know nurses and doctors who are not very happy with finance and budgets being at the forefront of health administrators minds and not patient satisfaction it’s something i’ve struggled with and the reason why i don’t necessarily want to work in a hospital or a private practice i love this because this is huge and my program and something that we talk about we take classes on how to work with nurses and doctors because they don’t like you sometimes if you don’t have a clinical background so first advice i would give you is if you can get any kind of clinical background i do think it’s beneficial i worked as a cna for like two years i mean it’s not a lot but i can say that i have been on that side of things a little bit it’s definitely not necessary.

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But it could help you see their side of things and i do agree with what you’re saying they don’t like that budget and things like that is in the forefront of administrators minds yes you are going to be thinking business as a health administrator but at the end of the day patient satisfaction is what should be at the top of your mind and i have learned a lot about doctors and other people they’re thinking about finance and business too they’re thinking about getting paid the hospital industry as a business people don’t like to think of it that way but that at the end of the day is what it is because without profit without money you cannot run and you cannot have satisfied patient you are going to be in charge of supplies and beds if a doctor is asking you for a new mri machine then you are on top of making sure that they are satisfied so it is very important that you have a mutual respect going on at the end of the day you can’t just give everyone what they want 

Because you would go out of business and then the doctors would not have a job so really it just is all about mutual respect not everyone can just think  give you do have to have some business even like free clinics and things like that community clinics they have to think about it too they can’t give good gift give there’s usually applications where you can get treatment and things like that so it is sad and of course we’re not gonna get political in this at all but of course i do think that health care is a right so that’s a whole other issue at the end of the day you have to stay in business in order to give that right to everybody someone asked also have you ever thought of health informatics consulting medical devices or project management yes i think about all of them all the time i still do not know what i want to do like i said a dream job for me would be like marketing position maybe even a project management position but i’m totally with you i’m debating all four right now as well this person said do you think a nursing degree background would be a good background for healthcare administration absolutely you are going to probably have a little bit more respect from your peers 

Because you do have that clinical background so when it comes to making decisions you are not only thinking on the business side but you do have that clinical experience to throw in there which is invaluable and like i said before i do think clinical experience is good but not necessary i’m hearing we’d need to have some type of business degree to be successful in a career in mha i’m just afraid that i don’t have the right background what do you think so this is a great question a lot of people asked me what undergrad degree should i have to be an mha i would say health administration if your school offers it mine didn’t public health would be a great degree to have business would be a great degree to have or statistics i think those would be really good undergrad degrees to have obviously that weren’t clinical or whatever but i just want to say it’s completely not necessary to have any of those degrees i had a exercise and sports science degree basically an anatomy degree it’s very irrelevant honestly to what i’m doing now and most programs do not require you to have any kind of specific degree in fact none of them do a lot of what master’s degrees are for is to switch your trajectory in life so a lot of people are using a master’s program to change their career field someone said do you think that it is still best to look into internships and what do you think the best way to get a better understanding of the different opportunities would be 100 internships and also volunteering 

I worked as a volunteer in a hospital for a while in college and i think that gave me like a little bit of insight into healthcare administration granted i was like making their copies and filing their papers but i did get to see like what the administrators around me were doing so if you can’t find a job or an internship try volunteering people are always looking for help but an internship is definitely i would say the best way to learn more about things and just having like a mentor like your supervisor in an internship because you can ask them questions they’re someone who has been in the field probably for 10 20 years unlike me who’s like in school so i definitely think looking into internship opportunities would be the best way to do that and i think the best way to find an internship opportunity is linkedin i think connections networking knowing people that is your best bet because cold applying is a lot more difficult to get a job or career i actually talked about this in my most recent podcast episode upfort podcast with hannah grace riddle she’s another internetr here but she is getting her mba and we talked a lot about internships and jobs and how to get them and how connections is the best way to do it so if you want to hear a little bit more about that 

You can go check that out can i apply for a hospital administrator position right after i get my master’s and how likely is it that i will get a job yes absolutely most people have jobs before they finish graduating and mha is a great degree people are looking for it especially if you’re in a big city where there’s a big hospital system you’re going to have a lot more opportunity in a bigger city what is the difference between an mba and mha i’ve gotten this question a lot basically what i would say is if you know you want to work in a hospital you know you want to work in healthcare i would steer towards an mha because it’s a lot more niche like i said every class you take is based around healthcare so in an mba you’re going to take basic finance basic accounting and in mha you’re going to take finance in healthcare so you’re going to be looking at hospital systems you’re going to take accounting in healthcare business you’re going to take marketing mha you’re going to take marketing in healthcare so everything is going to be much more niche and specific in an mha an mba is a great degree and you can definitely still be an administrator a healthcare administrator if you get that degree you’re just not going to have as much knowledge as someone who has an mha when it comes to specifically hospitals but of course that doesn’t mean you can’t learn for me 

I knew i wanted to work in hospital i’ve always wanted to work in healthcare so i went with the mha an mba it’s just going to be a more broad degree and then i know there is an mba in with a concentration in healthcare administration that’s going to be kind of like the middle point right business is very broad mha is very niche mba is going to be a little bit of the middle point so you’ll have kind of a mix of both but again if you know you want to work in healthcare i would still go with the mha would you recommend this degree for mds and then i also got a question would you recommend this degree for pharmd’s yes absolutely i think furthering your education is always a great idea if you can afford it and it’s a good situation for you you would definitely i think have more opportunities for a director role or a supervisor role as an md with an mha or a pharmd with an mha so a lot of people also ask me what about masters of public health versus masters of healthcare administration so masters of healthcare administration is much more business oriented than a masters of public health masters of public health is barely any business in reality and mph is much more on the research and scientific side of things so if you had an mph and you’re working in a hospital you might be looking at percentages of readmission rates and doing like studies on diseases in your area so you might be working in like a clinic as like an epidemiologist who is studying different diseases in your area and how to prevent them from spreading 

So like a lot of clinics have like the needle free needle programs and things like that that’s more mph and because you’re studying diseases and research whereas mha is much more business you’re looking at finance you’re looking at quality you’re looking at patient satisfaction you’re not really worried about the diseases and things like that that are going on someone said when you applied did you take the mcat and just general admission stuff and then they said unc baby go heels in order to get into a graduate program like a master’s degree you take the gre i did take the gre and it was fine honestly i feel like it’s like the sat it was not very difficult and then so you know you do not have to take the mcat general admission stuff every school is different i will say some schools require that you have been out of college a couple years some schools require that you have taken certain classes so you know just look up schools and find what fits you best i would start by looking at schools in your state because you will save a lot of money if you do that and then of course tommy c-a-h-m-e how do i say that accredited yeah 

So admissions you’re going to most likely have a resume a personal statement letters of recommendation and of course your transcripts and everything like that and then the gre i know they are waving the gre because of covid but obviously we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel so i do think in the coming up years you’ll have to take the gre my application for my program was due february 15th of the same year i would have started so my application was due in february i got my admissions at the end of march april and then i started in august so you don’t have to do it like super ahead of time like you do for like med school so i took the gre the summer after my junior year of college then i started my senior year in august of 2019 and then i applied in the beginning of 2020 and i started the program in august of 2020. for your personal statement my biggest advice with that is contact the admissions counselors and send them your personal statement before you turn it in because they really are great and they will help you tailor it to the program so i would definitely suggest hitting them up and seeing if they can help you with your personal statement and resume i also have a whole another post called how to get into grad school with a low gpa so i’ll link that for you guys and i talk a lot in that post about resumes personal statements how to do those really well and pretty much how to get into grad school what are the hours as an mha and what is the type of work week like hours wise this is a great question 

So a normal mha job for the most part is a 9 to 5 monday through friday 40 hours a week of course the hospital does run 24 7 so depending on the level of superiority i guess that you have you could be on call or have to work different hours like if you are the director of a specific unit and something happens and it’s an emergency you would get a call so i think that’s pretty normal for the mha every program is different but i am a full-time student and i do not work full-time they really tell you not to so i work part-time but basically what my schedule looks like every week is i have four classes everything is really different right now because of covet so obviously everything is online but in the fall let me tell you what my schedule will be i’ll have class four days a week monday tuesday wednesday thursday from 5 30 pm to 8 15 p.m that is a normal full-time program this semester for example i do have class saturdays from 9 30 to 12 15. the class times are a little bit irregular because they’re trying to account for those people who do work full-time of course that is like what a normal weekly class schedule looks like for me and then i would say homework-wise i have like two assignments per class i would say i do about three hours of homework per class outside of class so on top of the 12 hours of school that i actually have to attend i have another 12 to 20 hours of homework depending on if it’s midterm season or whatnot so i’d say like in general i’m spending about 30 hours a week 

On my degree that’s what i would say when should you start studying for the gre or the gmat like i said before you are going to do that like this summer after your junior year or your junior year i would take it earlier if you think you’re going to want to take it multiple times how competitive do you think being a hospital administrator is for instance in a hospital how many are there there’s a lot of hospital administrators i like don’t think i fully grasped what exactly hospital administrators did until i got into this program they are in everything they are in every sector of a hospital there is multiple administrators like all the way down from like the reception desk at the very front to like the ceo of a hospital so i do think it’s decently competitive because everyone wants those higher level positions but i also think with an mha you’re gonna have a leg up and you will be fine someone said do you ever have to deal with complaints from patients and medical staff all the time that’s like a big part of your job i guess depending on what you are if you’re human resources you might deal a little bit more with the medical staff but if you are in like working in the law part of things you would definitely deal with any issues with patients 

Someone asked how much harder was it to get your graduate degree then to get your bachelor’s degree i honestly think my graduate degree has been easier to get for a couple reasons one it’s two years two i’m way more passionate about it than i was my undergrad degree so i like actually like what i’m doing and i like my classes which i never did in undergrad and also like i said before you’re in a lot smaller classes and professors know you so it’s just overall a better experience do you think it matters if an applicant for a position attended an in-person grad school or grad school through an online school i do not think it would make a difference to be honest i was heavily considering online programs and the only reason i chose not to was accreditation issues online school is just as good and they’re probably not going to ask you the only thing i would say is if you do do an online program i would try to get more hands-on experience quicker just so that you do have that like in person experience because it is very different obviously online versus doing it in person okay i’m gonna answer one last question if you guys have any other questions you can leave them in the comments and i will try to get to you as much as i possibly can 

But last question this one this one got me it cracked me up it said i’ve heard this degree is a useless degree do you agree with that and nothing to the person that asked this because i just think it’s funny because i’ve heard people ask me this before but no i don’t think it’s a useless degree i am getting it my thoughts on that are no it’s definitely not a useless degree ceos of hospitals have mhas cfos anything like big big big people have mhas the need for people to work in health care and administration and business and health care is huge i do not think it is useless at all i think it’s actually very competitive and i think a lot of people want to get the degree even though not a lot of people talk about it i think it is a goal of a lot of people i have a cohort of 30. i know there’s four other universities in my state i know there’s universities all over that have this degree and they’re competitive programs and i don’t think it’s useless at all i think i’ve actually learned more in one year in this program that i learned in four years in college so i hope that you guys enjoyed this post of course i plan to keep you guys updated with what happens in my life i guess i don’t know everything like i said before and i’m learning as i go so hopefully i will have even better advice for you guys in the future as i start my job search and when i actually get a job and become a real hospital administrator so make sure that you guys subscribe so you can kind of keep up on my endeavors if you’re interested i thought i’d give you guys a franklin show because you loved him in my last post franklin up here he is oh he’s so cute but like i said thank you guys so much for being here make sure you subscribe and i will see you so very soon in my next one bye guys you.