Practice management and health administration is the management, administration and operations side of a health care business. This includes finance, budgeting, inventory and supplies management, and people management. Professionals working in practice management or health admin can develop skills in operations, finance, HR, customer service, change management and business development – depending on the size and structure of the business.
Healthcare management exist in a variety of sectors including; medical, dental, chiropractic, osteopathic, rehabilitation, aged care and more. Unlike the normal structure of organisations with different departments responsible for different functions, jobs in this industry usually have a hand in all aspects of the business from staff management to inventory management to improving patient care and customer service.
Employers are looking for professionals who are resourceful, proactive and adaptive to change. Professionals who can identify gaps in talent, processes, knowledge, skills, the day-to-day operations and improve how a practice operates are heavily sought after and in demand. Having the right qualifications within practice management is essential. Up-to-date knowledge of compliance and the ability to handle the practice’s finance and budgets is necessary for any medical sector. Leadership, listening and empathy are all important soft skills to have as practice managers are often responsible for coordinating and managing the different departments within their practice including the health professionals, support staff and customer service staff.
Works alongside or above the Practice Manager and oversees all business decisions made from a strategic level. This role will have more responsibilities with overall budgeting and departmental decisions.
Responsible for the overall management of staff within a practice. This role has more control over the operational side of the business and will work with management to ensure successful execution of business decisions.
Oversees daily management of other receptionists within a medical or allied health practice. This role has clerical, administrative and customer service duties and may also manage hours of subordinate receptionists.
Manages health information, such as patient information and business records. This role upholds high levels of confidentiality and security protocols and plans and implements new systems to meet business needs.
Manages record systems to support the business management of information. This role analyses existing systems, recommends improvements, and deals with the safe disposal or archiving of past data.
Oversees administrative duties within a healthcare organisation, including filing, processing documents, creating spreadsheets, managing office projects, and ensuring confidentiality is upheld.
Assists with keeping information accurate and up-to-date. This role follows up with missing information or late forms and helps the Records Manager with ad-hoc information management tasks.
Responsible for initial patient interaction and customer experience in a practice. This role schedules appointments, follows up with patients, and ensures documentation and invoices are organised and filed.
Works alongside or above the Practice Manager and oversees all business decisions made from a strategic level. This role will have more responsibilities with overall budgeting and departmental decisions.
Responsible for the overall management of staff within a practice. This role has more control over the operational side of the business and will work with management to ensure successful execution of business decisions.
Oversees daily management of other receptionists within a medical or allied health practice. This role has clerical, administrative and customer service duties and may also manage hours of subordinate receptionists.
Manages health information, such as patient information and business records. This role upholds high levels of confidentiality and security protocols and plans and implements new systems to meet business needs.
Manages record systems to support the business management of information. This role analyses existing systems, recommends improvements, and deals with the safe disposal or archiving of past data.
Oversees administrative duties within a healthcare organisation, including filing, processing documents, creating spreadsheets, managing office projects, and ensuring confidentiality is upheld.
Assists with keeping information accurate and up-to-date. This role follows up with missing information or late forms and helps the Records Manager with ad-hoc information management tasks.
Responsible for initial patient interaction and customer experience in a practice. This role schedules appointments, follows up with patients, and ensures documentation and invoices are organised and filed.
Practice Managers can find rewarding careers and roles in a variety of sectors, most often in the Health Care and Social Assistance sector. Within this sector, almost all practices and healthcare organisations require a practice manager role, including general practice, rehabilitation, dental, aged care, allied health (osteopathic, Chinese medicine, chiropractic) psychology practices, hospital and rehabilitative services and more.
Total spending on health in 2019 – 2020 is estimated to have been around $81.8 billion, representing 16.3% of the Australian Government’s total expenditure. (APH, 2020)
The 2020 Deloitte report highlighted the following major areas shown to be propelling change in the Australian healthcare sector.
Consumers and the ‘human experience’
Digitally enabled and seamless processes are even more important with the current climate. Ease of use and access between clinician-patient is providing healthcare leaders the opportunity to transform their practice into a more patient-centric and holistic health experience. This is why it is important to be developing new digital tools and keeping up to date with the latest software
Care model innovation
Ensuring your care model is able to be adapted and evolved for future shifts to solve the ever-present issues of affordability, access, quality and efficiency. Virtual care, at-home prescription delivery, remote monitoring, digital diagnostics and decision support are all reactions to the consumer shift in expecting care to be available when and how it is most convenient and safe for them.
Digital transformation and integrated data
Making the move to cloud software to store data is imperative in this current day and age for practice managers, to ensure that not only is patient data kept confidential and private, but the ease of access in real-time for healthcare providers is achieved. Many practices are now beginning to incorporate virtual visits particularly in the wake of COVID-19 changes to human interaction.
Socio-economic shifts
Taking action to make the healthcare system more accessible to those of lower income or socio-economic areas of the community is crucial to ensuring that where able, access to healthcare is fair and just.
Practice management and health administration are excellent career choices that are rewarding, challenging and enjoyable. In 2019, there were a record number of practice management roles (over 20,000) with over 70% of those roles advertised as full-time positions in Australia. While most practice managers and health administrators work in the general medical industry, there are plenty of opportunities in other sectors.
The value of the Practice Management Diploma or a Health Administration certificate is that the skills covered are broad enough to allow you to tailor your final career choices to your interests. It is also enough to make sure you’re highly qualified and ready to take on a health care role immediately upon graduating. Thanks to the online and self-paced study options available, there may even be opportunities to begin your career while still studying.
Develop your administration skills relevant to the healthcare industry to become confident in entry-level positions such as a medical receptionist, and other roles within this exciting sector.
100% Online Learning
Approx 12 -14 months part-time
Approx 10 months full-time
Senior Medical Receptionist$60,000
Healthcare Administrator$63,000
Clinical Coder$75,000
Develop your health administration and record management skills and become a confident medical receptionist with essential billing, invoicing and administration skills in this records and information management online course.
100% Online Learning
Approx 14 -16 months part-time
Approx 12 months full-time
Senior Medical Receptionist$60,000
Records Manager$63,000
Health Information Manager$105,000
Effectively launch, grow and manage a healthcare practice with the skills you need to lead your team to success. Take your existing administrative experience to the next level or get the skills you need to seize the next opportunity.
100% Online Learning
Approx 16-18 months part-time
Approx 12 months full-time
Senior Medical Receptionist$60,000
Practice Manager$70,000
Health Practice Business Manager$150,000
Our Real Outcomes Guarantee is our commitment to you and your career goals, ensuring that your studies will give you real-world benefits.
Our team, assessments and feedback are all focused on helping you in your career, not just completing your course. As the only RTO offering this, our guarantee is part of our ongoing work to go beyond just a piece of paper.
[My] manager explicitly told me that one of the reasons she awarded me the position was because she saw that I’d got the double diploma that I had achieved… Not because of the skills that I’d learned in my last role, but because of the skills that CAL taught me.
It’s helped me not only with just having the diploma on paper, but also enhancing those skills on the job to give you the experience that you need to move up the ladder.
We support you beyond achieving your qualifications – we want to help you be as prepared as possible for taking the next step in your career. Our Careers Hub gives you complimentary and exclusive access to resources and personalised advice from our in-house Career Coach.
My experience with Jenni the career counsellor was exceptional…The feedback was so helpful. She was encouraging too, and made me feel more sure about how to ‘sell myself’ to the target employers. I am very impressed with CAL’s careers hub – many resources that I will use. Thank you very much for your help.
– Samantha M.
Every member of our team is here to support you beyond achieving your qualifications. We want you to be as prepared as possible for taking the next step in your career. As a CAL student you’ll gain access to our Careers Hub through our online learning hub ‘Spark’.
