Top 15 Non-Clinical Healthcare Jobs
When we think of hospitals, we think of sick people, and getting shots, and nurses sticking needles in our arms.
But, you may be surprised to learn that a large portion of the healthcare jobs available are considered “non-clinical.” These are the hospital jobs that require not just healthcare knowledge, but a big chunk of business savvy. These jobs are the ones where you aren’t forced to interact with patients in a medical sense. For instance, there are roles that you can hold in the healthcare industry that don’t require extensive medical training to treat patients. Essentially, non-clinical roles are the individuals who are responsible for the behind-the-scenes things that are important to ensuring the hospital, healthcare facility, and clinic run smoothly in the healthcare industry.
The good news is that when you decide to work in the healthcare industry, you’re not limited to working in a clinical setting and being forced to be a doctor or a nurse or something similar. There are other healthcare roles and settings that you can work in and still impact patients in a positive way.
Educational requirements for non-clinical healthcare jobs can vary from an associate degree to a master’s degree, or higher. One of the major features that make these jobs desirable is they tend to pay well. The good news is that it isn’t just the medical doctors who are making the nice salaries in the medical field. Below, we will talk about some of the top 15 non-clinical healthcare jobs that you should consider.
Why You Should Consider Non-Clinical Healthcare Jobs
In the healthcare industry, there are plenty of non-clinical healthcare jobs that you can hold and still impact patients in a positive way. For instance, non-clinical healthcare jobs largely operate around the behind-the-scenes settings that we’ve mentioned earlier. For instance, these behind the scenes roles might be the executives, receptionists, medical billers, medical coders, medical transcriptionists, IT professionals, technicians, sales professionals, and more.
As healthcare continually changes each day, there is a growing desire for healthcare workers that work in non-traditional roles like non-clinical healthcare jobs. For instance, healthcare is largely changing to focus on the needs of patients more and more. One sign of this is telemedicine. This means that there is a large desire for professionals who can develop the technology that can help provide care to patients in more efficient and effective ways.
For instance, if you’re a programmer and you develop a medical app that helps connect patients with their doctors faster than being forced to set up an appointment and waiting to see their doctor, you can theoretically impact patients just as much if not more than pursuing a traditional clinical role like a Nurse or a Physician.
As with the rest of the healthcare industry, non-clinical roles and job openings are expected to rise throughout the next decade. This means that there will be plenty of opportunities to start a healthcare career without being forced to pursue a medical degree or healthcare degree. You can still pursue a healthcare job even if you have a degree that isn’t related to healthcare and instead have a degree in something else like technology, english, communications, marketing, business, and more.
Certain roles or healthcare jobs you pursue in a non-clinical setting will require certifications or some form of training, but those tend to only be a few weeks or several months. Those certifications and training requirements are much shorter than a degree you would have to pursue in a clinical role.
If you’re interested in pursuing a healthcare career but aren’t certain that you want to pursue the clinical route, holding a non-clinical healthcare job is a good way for you to determine whether or not the healthcare industry is for you. You can gain some valuable experience in the healthcare industry to see if it is the right fit and evaluate whether or not you’d like to pursue additional opportunities.
You can get started in the healthcare industry with limited healthcare experience or a healthcare degree by pursuing some of the healthcare jobs that we’ve listed below.
Top 15 Non-Clinical Healthcare Jobs:
15. Medical Transcriptionist
Medical transcriptionists keep records and stay entirely behind the scenes. This job is great if you are detail oriented, can keep track of documents and files, and don't like a lot of interaction with people. Basically, if you are an organizer and you remember everything, this job is for you. The job will have you listen carefully to audio recordings of doctor notes and write them down.
Taking accurate notes is super important in the healthcare industry, because they help physicians and healthcare professionals remember what treatment methods they recommended in the past, how those treatment methods worked, and more.
One great part about this gig, is it's one of the best non-clinical healthcare jobs that you can work from home. You must be current on your medical terminology and great with English because you have to produce detailed, accurate reports that become part of a patient's medical record.
In the healthcare industry, healthcare professionals are turning to speech recognition technology to take their notes. The problem with this is that these programs aren’t always accurate one hundred percent of the time. Therefore, Medical Transcriptionists are still in high demand to make sure that the records are still accurate by listening to the recorded speeches and ensure that they are accurately transcribed by the program.
Once the Medical Transcriptionist ensures the accurate transcription of the medical recording or speech, they are then directly responsible for inputting all of the relevant info and reports into the database in use by the healthcare provider or healthcare facility so the relevant healthcare professionals can access them when needed.
You can make $42,000 a year, which isn't too bad for a job you can do without getting out of your pajamas.
14. Legal Consultant
Legal Consultants are a critical piece of the healthcare machine. Every healthcare professional that directly interacts with patients frequently needs access to legal protection in the event that something were to go wrong or they were to be sued for malpractice. Legal Consultants are responsible for helping healthcare professionals with some of the legal cases or legal claims that are levied against them.
As a Legal Consultant, you will frequently be tasked with evaluating medical records, health records, and more to evaluate whether or not a case has merit and then to evaluate the best course of action based on the standards of care and whether or not wrongdoing was conducted.
According to ZipRecruiter, Legal Consultants typically earn an average of $74,400 a year with a range of earnings between $20,500 to $191,000 a year.
13. Informatics Nurse
Being an Informatics Nurse essentially revolves around information technology. These Informatic Nurses are responsible for taking care of an managing the IT procedures in a healthcare facility or clinic. In addition, Informatics Nurses are largely responsible for training and educating other healthcare professionals on how to use the technology throughout their daily rotations.
Part of the training and education that you will provide to other healthcare professionals on how to use the technology will require that you spend extra time and effort doing deep dives into the technology the facility uses to ensure that you know every nook and cranny about how they operate and work. This ensures that you can provide all the answers to questions or problems that might arise, and also ensure that you’re teaching the other healthcare professionals all the need to know things based on the technology they will be working with throughout the day when caring for patients.
If you’re interested in becoming an Informatics Nurse, one important thing to consider is that it is slightly easier to become an Informatics Nurse if you’re already a Registered Nurse or operate as a Nurse in some capacity.
This is due to the fact that you can provide more insight into how technology is used, or how it should be used when you’re training other nurses on the technology that they are using because you have some valuable experience and can provide insight from a nursing perspective.
In other words, becoming an Informatics Nurse is a great option for those experienced healthcare professionals who are looking for a new healthcare career or career option as they transition out of a clinical setting and into a non-clinical setting. By transitioning from a clinical setting into a non-clinical role, you can share some of the important experience you’ve gained and bring that knowledge to the technology that is in use on a daily basis.
Informatic Nurses typically earn between $24.69/hr to $42.80/hr. This roughly translates to $47,404/yr to $87,176/yr.
12. Patient Advocate
Patient Advocates essentially work as a go-between for healthcare professionals and patients. Their core duties revolve around scheduling treatment plans, patient appointments, manage medical paperwork and answer phones. In addition, Patient Advocates frequently communicate with healthcare professionals to ensure they know what the plan for treatment is from the healthcare professionals and then relay that information to the patients.
Frequently, the healthcare industry uses some complex jargon or language to explain what the future of the treatment plan looks like or where the next stage is. Patient Advocates help translate some of these complex terms or phrases to patients to make sure that they understand what is going on.
According to Glassdoor, Patient Advocates typically earn between $31,000/yr to $51,000/yr.
11. Healthcare Writer
If you’re interested in a unique job for both experienced and inexperienced healthcare professionals, then you should consider becoming a healthcare writer. The healthcare industry requires knowledgeable people or talent communicators who are capable of conveying information to healthcare professionals and healthcare students who are looking to secure more knowledge.
For instance, healthcare professionals require extensive documentation that provides a thorough analysis of how to use equipment, technology, or how to effectively treat patients using equipment or medical devices. If you’re a talented writer, then you can help write the documentation that they use.
Being a healthcare writer doesn’t stop there though. You could also write up education materials or research materials that are used by healthcare professionals to obtain knowledge or improve the number of continuing education credits that they possess. As a healthcare writer, you might also frequently find yourself updating research documents, writing about clinical research findings, editing documents, interpreting important documents,and communicating that information to relevant professionals.
The important thing about being a healthcare writer is that you need to understand the documentation that you’re reading or editing, and then be able to convey that information in a clear and concise way. As a healthcare writer, you will be tasked with making sure that you present the information properly so that experienced and inexperienced healthcare professionals can understand what is being discussed.
If you have a degree in English or Communications, then you should consider a career as a healthcare writer. According to Salary.com, Healthcare Writers typically earn between $52,000/yr to $69,000/yr.
10. Quality Improvement Manager or Coordinator
As a Quality Improvement Manager or Coordinator, your role is to take care of some of the administrative responsibilities that frequently come with the hectic environment of a healthcare facility, hospital, or clinic. The main focus of a Quality Improvement Coordinator is to find areas of improvement and then implement and manage those changes. Essentially, Quality Improvement Coordinators help find areas where care can improve.
Are there too many barriers to providing care for patients? Do things take an unreasonable amount of time before they’re taken care of? Are there systems in place that are outdated and slowing things down? Essentially these are questions that you seek answers to. As a Quality Improvement Coordinator you find ways to improve treatment procedures and then monitor the changes to those programs.
Part of the responsibilities you will have as a Quality Improvement Coordinator will also revolve around trying to find ways to save money without sacrificing the level of care that the healthcare organization or facility provides to patients.
Like some of the other roles on our list, if you’re interested in transitioning from a clinical role into a non-clinical role, then this is a great job for you to consider as this is one of the roles on our list that require previous experience within the healthcare industry.
If you have prior experience in the healthcare industry, you can bring critical insight into how to improve some of the systems and processes that exist within the healthcare industry.The good news is that you don’t always need to have prior clinical experience or prior healthcare experience to become a Quality Improvement Coordinator, because an inexperienced individual can always bring some helpful insight into how to improve some of the systems that are in place.
For instance, if you were a Quality Improvement Manager in another industry, then you can transfer that skill and experience to the healthcare industry with little issue.
According to ZipRecruiter, Quality Improvement Coordinators typically earn between $41,000/yr to $84,000/yr.
9. Medical Secretary
This is one of the most in-demand non-clinical healthcare jobs today. A good medical secretary will need to have a bachelor’s degree, or continuing education classes specific to the field. As with any other career, the more education you have the better off you’ll be. The more education you have backing you, the better your chance of landing that dream job in a hospital, clinic, or physician’s private practice.
Growth rates in this field are projected as high as a 17 percent increase in the demand for medical secretaries in the coming year. An entry level salary can be as high as $42,000 a year, with the high end salary limited only by your negotiating skills.
Medical Secretaries help provide some structure to the chaotic environment that a healthcare facility, hospital, or clinic can be. As a Medical Secretary, one of the key things you will be doing is taking care of some of the various administrative or clerical tasks that pop up throughout the day. These might include corresponding with patients, maintaining files, interacting with and paying vendors, billing patients, and handling insurance documentation.
In addition, you will frequently find yourself interacting with patients and their family members as you help greet patients, schedule appointments, or talk to individuals on the phone.
According to Salary.com, Medical Secretaries typically earn between $35,000/yr to $44,500/yr.
8. Medical Records & Health Information Manager
This is one of the fastest growing non-clinical healthcare jobs in the nation. A medical records and health information technician (MR/HIT) is a vital part of any hospital, nursing home, clinic, or individual private practice. The MR/HIT is responsible for organizing, processing, and maintaining the records of all the patients that are treated at a hospital or clinic.
The unique thing about this job is that you might be asked to maintain thousands of records.
With the Affordable Care Act’s emphasis on electronic health records, MR/HIT must be able to learn new systems quickly and rapidly adapt to the changing environment in the medical records field. Health Information Managers and Medical Records Managers typically earn between $26.61/hr to $42.91/hr. This roughly translates to an annual salary of $51,000/yr to $82,000/yr. The potential for growth is astronomical in the coming years for this position.
As we mentioned, you will be tasked with learning and staying up to date on all of the new technology that is implemented to manage the patient records, and then ensure that you’re maintaining and updating the patient records with the modern methods.
7. Athletic Trainer
Athletic trainer would be a great non-clinical healthcare job for those who love sports; athletic trainers work with athletes from high school all the way up to the pros. You must be a trained healthcare professional able to recognize, prevent, and manage injuries that result from intense physical exertion. You must also be able to work with players, during rehabilitation, to help them overcome potentially career-ending injuries.
You can help athletes find alternative ways to treat their injuries, so they won't have to go under the knife and disrupt their careers and lives. ATs also help players take preventative measures so they can avoid serious injuries. Plus, you have good job prospects.
If you decide to pursue a career as an Athletic Trainer, you can also work with other occupational health and safety members to make sure that you are keeping everyone who is employed healthy. For instance, you can work with the healthcare facilities, hospitals, and clinics to develop wellness programs and plans for everyone to follow to ensure they can show up to work each day with a healthy body and a healthy attitude.
Athletic Trainers are also responsible for helping provide education about various training methods, diagnosing various injuries from acute medical conditions to chronic conditions, and find ways to encourage active participation throughout the day.
Athletic trainers are in demand and the field is growing alongside our ever-growing love of sports and wellness programs that companies and healthcare facilities are implementing throughout the country. As an Athletic Trainer, you can typically earn between $18.29/hr to $22.54/hr. This roughly translates to $35,100/yr to $43,270/yr, which still isn't too shabby.
6. Rehabilitation Counselor
This is a demanding non-clinical healthcare job that offers a nice entry-level salary and excellent earning potential over the life of your career. Rehabilitation counselors work with individuals to maximize their independence. They help persons with personal, social, and vocational difficulties reach their maximum potential for employment.
Rehabilitation counselors work with persons with birth defects, illnesses, and diseases, the victims of accidents, or those having difficulty coping with the stress of daily life. They work with other health care professionals to help people be active, participating members of society.
Some of your other responsibilities as a Rehabilitation Counselor might also include assessing psychological/medical/vocational needs, developing treatment plans, consulting with other healthcare professionals, counseling patients, and career planning.
If someone is diagnosed with a disability, it can be quite difficult to come to terms with how they move forward and return to their normal life. As a Rehabilitation Counselor, your main focus is helping them return to that normal life and help them get adjusted to their new routine by identifying the individual’s strengths.
Rehabilitation Counselors typically earn between $16.83/hr to $24.52/hr, which roughly translates to $32,313/yr to $47,100/yr.
5. Mental Health Counselor
Mental Health Counselors work in a variety of settings; they can work in public hospitals, private clinics, or sometimes even do house calls. Their main focus is counseling patients on prevention whether it be from helping a drug addict overcome their addiction, to helping someone end their self-harming, to helping married couples with problems work out their differences and prevent divorce.
This non-clinical healthcare job requires a master’s degree and state licensure. Mental health counselors are responsible for helping patients who are struggling emotionally. Mental Health Counselors are responsible for helping patients who struggle with mental wellness issues that might struggle from trauma, addiction, or other mental obstacles. The unique thing about becoming a Mental Health Counselor is that you can specialize in a topic of your choosing, and work directly with patients who are suffering in that specialization.
According to PayScale, Mental Health Counselors typically earn between $29,280/yr to $59,100/yr.
4. Medical Social Worker
Medical social workers work in hospitals and other health service locations. They serve as case managers, therapists, or work with patients to guide them through their care and treatments. Many coordinate care for patients who need ongoing procedures, or live with a chronic illness. This non-clinical healthcare job can be very demanding, as they work with patients with terminal illnesses and must guide not only the patient, but many times interact with the families to provide counseling and crisis intervention.
Social workers help patients tackle the problems that they face and learn how to function at their best. One of the core responsibilities of social workers is to help counsel individuals, families, and their patients with serious illnesses, disabilities, or issues that they struggle with. In some cases, they will also be called in to help on issues that involve spousal abuse or child abuse.
It's a good idea to get your master's degree if you want to land a good job in this field, because the more education you have, the more responsibility and autonomy you have, and the more money you make.
Social Workers typically earn between $25.66/hr to $31.56/hr. This roughly translates to $49,000/yr to $61,000/yr.
3. Medical Equipment Preparer
If business or education is not your niche, embrace your inner geek and consider medical equipment preparer as a career. With more and more technology forming the backbone of medical practice, these jobs not only pay well but offer job security. You can find these positions in hospitals, as well as private practice clinics.
Medical equipment preparers are responsible for testing, repairing, and adjusting medical equipment. Someone has to keep the MRIs and CT scanners up and scanning.
According to the BLS, Medical Equipment Preparers typically earn between $24,000/yr to $53,000/yr.
2. Health Educator
With more and more companies focusing on employee health and wellness, the demand for health educators makes it a position worth considering. A health educator is part teacher and part doctor, and may work in settings that vary from schools, to community centers, to health care systems.
The unique thing about Health Educators is that they can hold a variety of roles within healthcare facilities, organizations, clinics, or hospitals. For instance, you can educate patients about various health concerns that they might have and how to live a healthy life while taking care of their conditions, or you can even train the next generation of healthcare professionals. In addition, you might even train individuals who aren’t passionate about the healthcare industry in topics they aren’t familiar with.
Health educators are responsible for promoting healthy lifestyles and wellness. They work with individuals and groups to promote healthy behaviors that can prevent disease and other health problems.
According to Salary.com, Health Educators typically earn between $54,000/yr to $70,000/yr.
1. Health Care Administrator
If you want to make great money, work in a hospital, but not have to cut anyone open, then becoming a healthcare administrator is right up your alley. Hospitals don’t run themselves and-- if you're good at managing a business and have a knack for keeping things running smoothly-- they need you to do it. The health care administrator is the one that keeps it all together, makes sure everything happens when it's supposed to happen, manages the money, and is ultimately responsible for just about everything that goes on.
It is a demanding job that can pay, but is one of the best non-clinical healthcare jobs for the money. An advanced degree is usually a requirement for these positions, generally a minimum of a master’s degree in healthcare administration. Help people that help people, become a healthcare administrator.
Healthcare Administrators or Health Administrators typically earn between $23.68/hr to $40.97/hr. This roughly translates to $45,465/yr to $78,663/yr.
(Article / Content Updated 2018)