Healthcare Analyst Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Are you searching for a healthcare analyst job description? Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a healthcare analyst. Feel free to use our healthcare analyst job description template to produce your own healthcare analyst job description. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a healthcare analyst.
Who is a Healthcare Analyst?
A healthcare analyst gathers information, analyze it, and uses it in a clinic or medical facility to develop more effective processes. The analyst gets data from patient records, insurance claims, reports, studies, and surveys to find areas for improvement. Healthcare analysts also do report writing, presentation, and review to support choices and change recommendations. Their responsibilities ensure the institution operates efficiently and offers patients better treatment. A healthcare analyst may work for a hospital, a group of doctors’ offices, a health insurance provider, or a company that develops health information technology.
Healthcare analysts are professionals in this field, and it is their job to examine the data to conclude how to enhance patient care. They are sometimes known as healthcare business analysts because they gather large amounts of data from medical reports, electronic health records, patient satisfaction surveys, and billing claims.
Healthcare analysts typically have backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, and coding languages like SQL. Because they interact verbally with hospital leadership teams for a large portion of their work, they also require efficient communication skills. Healthcare analysts must be able to communicate complicated thoughts regarding the healthcare business clearly and concisely.
Given the increasing demands on healthcare companies, a healthcare analyst is in charge of interpreting this enormous volume of data. Clinical data can be organized and collected efficiently by professional healthcare analysts, improving decision-making for both medical and commercial objectives.
Analysts in the field of healthcare gather information from numerous databases. These experts have received training in areas like statistics and research methodologies, and they also have knowledge of government health policies, which helps them assemble accurate healthcare data. After that, they transfer what they have learned into an electronic database to examine with tools like Excel or SPSS.
Data visualization makes it possible to find trends in medical diagnoses or treatments. Doctors are then informed of the findings to treat their patients’ conditions and understand the problem.
After compiling and analyzing data, healthcare data analysts present their findings to healthcare professionals. Presentations are usually in the form of data visualization, PowerPoint presentations, and spreadsheets. The data is then used by these professionals for various purposes including managing patients or detecting trends in hospital admission rates.
A healthcare data analyst’s jobs involve suggesting improvements to healthcare data infrastructure. That includes helping businesses and providers identify ways they can make their systems more efficient, cost-effective, or accurate.
Healthcare analysts provide actionable insights that drive and optimize operational management, process improvements, and growth strategies for healthcare organizations. Ultimately, they play a vital role in improving the quality of healthcare and patient outcomes, increasing efficiency and lowering the cost of healthcare, and enhancing the patient experience.
In addition to having great compensation, healthcare analyst also has a wide range of potential job duties. You can join the data analytics team, examine medical databases, or engage in research. Healthcare analysts play a crucial role in the healthcare sector since they offer insights to enhance operations and care quality.
Healthcare Analyst Job Description
What is a healthcare analyst job description? A healthcare analyst job description is simply a list of duties and responsibilities of a healthcare analyst in an organization. Below are the healthcare analyst job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a healthcare analyst job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
The duties and responsibilities of a healthcare analyst include the following:
- Address project goals by creating and putting into practice statistical analysis plans.
- Account for managing priorities for upcoming reports and tracking ongoing results reports.
- Create models that can capture a variety of information about healthcare delivery.
- Create and build Tableau representations for reports from clinical consultancy.
- Deliver reports and clinical data presentations as needed to internal and external clients.
- Ensure large and complex datasets can be statistically analyzed and accurate.
- Identify differences and trends in the given healthcare data.
- Manage routine and extraction and reports from various primary and secondary data sources
- Offer advice on how to make client health plan populations’ access to, and quality of, healthcare more affordable and effective.
- Responsible for sophisticated code and sound statistical reports
- Provide support in market research data collection.
- Responsible report clinical learnings from the examination of information from medical claims.
- Responsible for the presentation of statistical findings to the consulting team and non-statisticians.
Qualifications
- High school certificate
- A bachelor’s degree in nursing, public health, health administration, computer science, or relevant discipline
- Experience either in healthcare or data analytics internship or apprenticeship role
- An advanced degree like a master’s, Ph.D., or MBA (preferred by some firms)
- Proficiency in data analysis
- Knowledge of the usage of analytics tools like Tableau and its likes
Essential Skills
Healthcare data analysts use both soft and technical skills to carry out their duties, including:
- Analytical skills
A healthcare facility’s many different sources of data must be thoroughly researched, analyzed, and interpreted by healthcare analysts. By doing this, they will be able to decide with confidence and knowledge on the financial viability of a clinic.
- Attention to details
Healthcare analysts frequently have to handle several tasks at once. As a result, they must maintain their organization and laser-like attention to the minute details of a project. An analyst’s conclusions could be disastrously wrong if one piece of information is absent.
- Communication
Healthcare analysts employ three methods of communication while working with other medical specialists, including Analysts breaking down complex material so that other experts can understand it. When educating new employees, they use verbal communication to explain how databases operate and what information they gather. They also use communication skills, like voice articulation and pronunciation, while making presentations.
It is crucial that analysts’ writing is understandable to readers by being thorough and straightforward. They must also make sure their language is accurate to prevent inconsistencies.
Healthcare analysts alter their communication styles depending on the people they are dealing with. For instance, analysts might talk programming languages with software engineers and use medical jargon when speaking to a doctor. Healthcare analysts can converse effectively with coworkers one-on-one, thanks to interpersonal communication.
Healthcare analysts must be able to communicate the findings of their studies to avoid any space for interpretation because they are to increase economic efficiency inside a healthcare facility.
- Data collection and analysis
Healthcare analysts gather data through observation. For instance, they might keep track of how many patients submit insurance claims or how long it takes for patients to visit a doctor after being admitted. Analysts learn how to record their data for further interpretation from their observations.
- Empathy
It is critical to differentiate between having empathy and exhibiting compassion. Showing sympathy entails expressing sympathy or care for another individual. On the other hand, empathy is the capacity to step into another person’s shoes and support them through difficult situations. Not to discount sympathy, but empathy can go a long way toward making someone else feel understood and valued.
Empathy is a skill that healthcare executives who wish to connect with their staff members can develop on levels. Healthcare analysts should demonstrate empathy on a personal level, and they need to inspire others to do the same within their organizations.
- Adaptability and flexibility
Two essential skills are flexibility and adaptability. Some people think that being flexible in response to requests or being willing to compromise shows a lack of conviction. In reality, success in today’s fast-paced settings requires the capability to compromise and adjust on the fly to meet new problems and needs. Although change might be hard, learning to modify and adapt as necessary is a wise decision.
- Personality traits
Facilities may occasionally hire healthcare analysts to handle delicate situations, such as staffing or administrative problems. They must therefore be able to communicate with colleagues and other professionals in a way that values civility and respect for one another.
- Knowledge of medical terminology
Healthcare analysts can evaluate the information on patient medical records by understanding clinical codes. They might have a fundamental understanding of the many medical problems and how they develop in people. Analysts need to know how well treatment programs are working to monitor the standard of patient care.
- Problem-solving
Healthcare analysts can recognize issues with facility operations and come up with remedies thanks to their problem-solving abilities. An analyst can link an increase in readmitted patients with the same ailment to the patient’s treatment plans, for instance, if a quarterly report reveals the trend. The analyst might advise physicians to prescribe a strong drug to lessen the costs associated with retreating patients. This medication can also help patients feel better more quickly, reducing how often they visit doctors.
- Team Playing
You will almost definitely need to work with others in the majority of healthcare contexts. It can be challenging to put together teams that can complete tasks most efficiently and accurately possible, especially when it includes team members with various skill sets.
- Integrity and Honesty
In some areas of healthcare, such as one that involves medical equipment, being truthful and reliable is essential. By failing to keep data secret, you could cause a problem for the patients. In contrast, many healthcare analysts frequently downplay or cover up their errors because of their commitment to the industry. That is never a good idea because honesty and integrity are more important than anything else in healthcare.
- Technology
Healthcare analysts use technology to control data collection. They employ the following technological skills:
To gather statistics and identify trends in the data, analysts might make use of the characteristics of analytical tools. The analyst is in charge of protecting the databases that hold financial and medical records. Analysts are also skilled in retrieving and updating records as necessary. To build new applications for databases and rearrange facility records, analysts may utilize a variety of computer languages, including, for instance, Java Script.
- Time management
Time management and the ability to perform under duress are very crucial. Healthcare analysts develop this skill with time, and education does not teach them that. They must have good time management skills to handle different tasks at the right time. However, it is also crucial to ensure they get to work on time, are not running behind schedule, and do so honestly.
How to Become a Healthcare Analyst
The steps that you may need to take to seek education, training, and professional development to work as a healthcare analyst are below:
Get your bachelor’s degree
Earning a bachelor’s degree in health science or computer-related discipline will allow you to grasp medical terminology and the ethical guidelines for handling patient information, which is the first step in becoming a healthcare analyst. You may learn about the technology used in the industry through these classes.
Obtain a master’s degree.
Employers may find you more appealing as a job candidate if you have a master’s degree. You can also get a Master of Business Administration. Additionally, you can pursue advanced studies in health informatics to make you understand the healthcare industry to use in your work as an analyst.
Acquire experience
You may be able to move into a position as a healthcare data analyst after accumulating one to two years of professional experience. Think about finishing a clinical internship or making an application for entry-level medical office administrator jobs. You can watch how facilities operate through such activities, and you will get practice interacting with patients and managing medical records.
Obtain a certification
If you live in the United States, you must obtain certification from the American Health Information Management Association to become a certified healthcare analyst (AHIMA), It requires the following qualifications in addition to a passing score on a written certification exam:
Three years’ worth of professional experience and a bachelor’s degree
One year of experience working with healthcare data and a master’s degree
A registered Health Information Technician (RHIT) certificate and at least three years of experience dealing with healthcare data.
Where to Work as a Healthcare Analyst
Healthcare data analysts may work alone or as a member of a bigger group of business intelligence experts. They frequently report to an executive, such as the chief financial officer or chief medical officer, or they may be employed by an IT or quality assurance department.
Healthcare analysts may also work in other administrative divisions, such as human resources or supply chain management.
Health care providers and organizations like these might hire healthcare data analysts:
- Healthcare facilities and systems
- Doctors’ offices and organizations
- Medical labs
- Pharmaceutical companies
- Insurance companies
- Departments and agencies of the federal and state governments
- Healthcare consultancy firms
Healthcare Analyst Salary Scale
Salary ranges for healthcare data analysts depend on several factors, including education, certifications, and years of experience.
According to salary.com, the average income for a healthcare analyst with a master’s or MBA is between $64,000 and $71,000.
Payscale estimates that the salaries of healthcare analysts range from $48,000 to $81,000. This range probably represents the difference between the pay for entry-level and senior healthcare data analysts. Senior healthcare analysts’ starting pay might range from $83,000 to more.
