Certain health-care jobs growing despite recession; managed-care administrators are highly prized - Special Report: Health Care
Categories: Health Care JobsDespite the recession, jobs in health care are growing steadily, especially administrative jobs in managed care, according to Los Angeles area search firms.
“All progressive health care people are looking for managed-care people,” said Anthony Pfannkuche, director of the health care practice at Spencer Stuart and Associates, a retained executive search firm. “And all HMOs (health maintenance organizations) are looking for better-trained, more-skilled managers.”
What characteristics are search firms seeking?
People who know how to wheel and deal contracts with hospitals, can comprehend complicated financial issues, understand strategic marketing and represent the interests of physicians, hospitals and patients, search firm executives said.
Managers who meet these qualifications are being compensated well. Pfannkuche said the chief executive of an HMO having more than 150,000 members can make anywhere from $150,000 to $300,000 a year, the equivalent of a head administrator of a large hospital.
Managed care is the future in health care, industry observers said. Already 50 to 60 percent of L.A. County’s insured population is covered through managed-care companies such as Kaiser Permanente, Pacificare, FHP or Health Net.
Under a managed-care system, patients pay a company a monthly fee and that company contracts with a hospital for service. A private-insurance system, on the other hand, reimburses a patient or provider for services the patient gets from any place he or she wants.
Because the managed-care industry is evolving, good managers are hard to find, said Pfannkuche. He said many executives are being enticed from other managed-care companies and taking jobs with companies that offer stock as compensation.
Hospitals, in turn, are firing their CEOs en masse in response to the reddening of the bottom line, said Stu Fishler at Russell Reynolds Associates Inc.
“With the radical changes in reimbursement, CEOs not trained in managed care are getting hit,” he said.
Pfannkuche said the health-care segment of his search firm has increased fivefold in the past five years and now represents 15 percent of the firm’s total U.S. revenues.
Other recruiters concurred that their health-care business is increasing. That growth, they said, is due to the boom in alternative systems of health care, such as HMOs, home health care and medical group management — where doctors get together to provide multi-specialty care.