What is healthcare service management?
Healthcare service management is a professional field within the healthcare industry that is responsible for coordinating, organizing, and delivering daily functions within a hospital or clinical setting. Health service managers work throughout the healthcare field and in various medical settings to manage and oversee the operational and business functions of healthcare environments. Healthcare settings include hospitals, outpatient facilities, nursing homes, physicians’ offices, and group medical practices. Health service management is responsible for managing administrative tasks to improve patient care, medical compliance, and payer relationships.
Health service management includes a variety of job functions such as laboratory manager, clinical supervisor, health director, medical director, and services coordinator. Daily responsibilities will depend on the job title and the department. These daily tasks include - financial management, training medical staff, hiring new employees, insurance policy coordination, managing medical inventory, maintaining patient records, coordinating care delivery, organizing staff meetings, patient billing, scheduling new patients, overseeing provider calendars, training staff on compliance laws, and facilitating communication between medical staff. Health service managers can work in small or large healthcare settings depending on their area of expertise, ranging from financial operations, quality improvement, personnel organization, infrastructure planning, public relations, customer service, and development planning.
Health service management specializations can vary depending on the department. They include:
- Care delivery: Health service managers can work in various healthcare facilities to organize provider schedules and maintenance routines, ensuring patient care standards are maintained by managing medical tools, offices, and applications.
- Clinical operations: Health service managers oversee the operations of outpatient clinics or long-term medical facilities, ensuring high clinical standards and implementing new policies that improve the healthcare process.
- Financial planning: Health service managers can be responsible for budget operations and corporate accounting, overseeing financial records to maintain daily operations. They manage patient billing and record the cost of medical procedures.
- Electronic record storage: Health service managers can use technical training to manage electronic health records, helping facilities keep up-to-date information on patient data. They also train staff in modern IT software and infrastructure to keep data secure, enhance workflows, and make patient information more accessible.
- Policy management: Health service managers can specialize in local, state, and federal laws and how they apply to the healthcare sector. They are responsible for managing compliance and regulatory activities within healthcare organizations to ensure healthcare staff and facilities operate within the correct laws.
- Insurance: Health service managers can oversee insurance practices within healthcare facilities. They negotiate contract renewals, enforce billing, oversee reporting compliance, and manage patient questions.
- Human resources: Health service managers can manage staff recruitment and supervise the employment process of specialized personnel. They are responsible for training staff in procedural guidelines when working in specific healthcare settings, i.e., laboratory protocols.
- Business operations: Health service managers can lead multiple departments within a healthcare facility and ensure effective business operations aligned with standard protocols.
- Quality care: Health service managers can work on preparing, facilitating, and collecting data on employee work experience and patient concerns. These findings are used by senior management to implement policies or workplace standards that build better experiences throughout the healthcare process.
Benefits of healthcare service management include:
- Structured health delivery: Healthcare facilities gain an organized and structured approach to ensuring medical services and treatments are delivered in a way that enables better patient health. Providers can more easily connect to patients, share medical data, and maintain routine care.
- Cost control: Healthcare costs are maintained by health service managers that work with insurance companies to build a predetermined cost structure. They maintain the delivery of health services through a care network, spreading the risk of high medical costs to a large group of physicians and patients to lower the overall consumer cost.
- Choice in a health plan: Patients can choose between different health plan options in coverage and medical benefits. The healthcare insurance process is coordinated by health service managers that guide patients in how their coverage plans operate and the extent of their financial responsibilities.
- Organized decision-making: Healthcare facilities benefit from structured operations maintained by health service managers. These managers help oversee daily operations and coordinate all necessary activities with laws and regulations. They design and implement rules and norms that enhance healthcare delivery and keep medical practitioners up to date on procedural guidelines.