Where the Jobs Are: Health Care

Love it or hate it, the roll out of the Affordable Care Act has created more jobs in the medical world.

“There are many, many jobs in health care,” says Janet Elkin, chief executive of staffing firm Supplemental Healthcare. “More people are being insured. Right now, there’s 7 million and counting [enrolled on state and federal health insurance exchanges]. A safe estimate is that at some point there will be 30 million insured.”

The aging baby boomer generation is also helping create more job opportunities as their medical demands increase and they start to leave their jobs. According to Elkin, the average age of nurses is around 48 and about one-third of current physicians are looking to retire in the next decade.

“Every segment within health care is seeing greater demand for talent,” adds Paul McDonald, senior executive director at Robert Half International. “More people are getting coverage, which means more demand on all the current systems that we have.”

But it’s not just doctors and nurses that will be in demand. According to industry experts, job openings in the medical world run the gambit from office workers to clinical specialists.

McDonald identifies staff supervisors and managers who are tasked with assisting in the higher volumes of appointments and medical billing as being in high demand, while Elkin says medical scribes are often highly-sought but under the radar.

But it doesn’t stop there: McDonald says accountants and finance professionals, technology experts, human resources professionals and attorneys can also find good job opportunities in the health-care industry.

“Some of the positions are requiring health-care experience, but that’s not always the case,” he says. “With some technology jobs, as long as they have the tech skills they are very transferrable from one company to another.”

While finding a job in the health-care industry might be easier than other fields, it still requires work on the part of the job seeker. When starting a job search, she recommends looking into any education or certificate requirements and how much they will cost.

For people interested in entering the medical industry, Elkin says nursing is a great profession to consider because there are so many different areas to pursue and the schedule can offer work/family balance.

When it comes to applying to positions in the medical field, McDonald says the process is a lot like any other industry.

“Job seekers should be applying for jobs through the traditional sources including recruiters, job boards and LinkedIn,” he says McDonald, adding that Twitter and Facebook are also good outlets along with in-person networking.