Your Most Valuable Tool For Finding a Non-clinical Job

When I hear from doctors who are looking for good non-clinical jobs, physicians often include a list of positive attributes such as 'I work well with others,' 'I am eager to learn,' or 'I have a strong interest in starting my own business.'

While these attributes are valuable in achieving success, they often don't help in gaining credibility in the transition to the non-clinical workforce, or in negotiating a competitive salary.

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Your most valuable tool for finding a non-clinical job is expertise in regulations and policies.

Expertise is one of the most valuable tools that health care professionals possess.  Doctors already have expertise in medical care. However, the current medical atmosphere has led to an overwhelming growth of policies in areas of coding, billing, licensing, accreditation, practice parameters, best models of health care, patient privacy, cost containment, documentation and electronic medical records- to name just a few of the complex regulatory matters that affect every aspect of health care.

Whether you aspire to work in an executive or administrative role or to start your own business, a mastery of these hard to grasp regulatory issues will serve you well and can potentially make you irreplaceable. When you customize your own areas of non-clinical healthcare policy expertise, you will reap the benefits of your invested time and energy.

There are a number of effective ways to master healthcare regulation. You can use the following approaches to build regulatory expertise. Most doctors do not need to use all of these methods, and instead mix and match these tools at a self-appointed pace.

• Join one of your decision-driven hospital or university committees (such as pharmacy committee or payer relations or compliance or resident education or CME) You might not get appointed right away, but if you show interest, ask to attend a few meetings as a 'guest,' and contribute usefully to the discussion (or, at least, don't anger too many people) you are likely to get an appointment in the next appointment cycle.
• If you are offered a part-time consulting job, consider it. Most doctors turn their noses up at chart-review jobs or consulting opportunities that pay $150-200/hr. However, the experience of doing 'behind the scenes' work provides more insight into the realities and complexities of healthcare policy than most formal courses.
  
• Attend programs sponsored by your professional specialty association. Most regulation centered programs do not count as CME- but they can be worthwhile for your own educational and practical benefit. These presentations are generally well designed and relevant.
• Take a course in healthcare policy at a local college to fill in the gaps of your regulatory knowledge and to tailor your learning.
• Use free online resources. Almost everything anyone would ever want to know about healthcare laws, rules, regulations, payment, licensing and so forth is available online. Here are some links to introductory resources to get you started.
  
• Consider getting an MBA, healthcare MBA, executive MBA or MPH. So many doctors are getting these extra degrees now, that many administrative positions unofficially require them. In considering whether to get an extra degree, it is important to keep in mind that these programs can provide a mechanism to help you understand healthcare regulation- but they might not. It depends on the curriculum of the program you are considering. There are some advantages to studying for an MBA, a healthcare or executive MBA or an MPH, and these different degrees are not all the same. You should carefully examine the curriculum of several programs to get insight into what the programs have to offer- and then decide whether a program can help you in achieving your objectives. A doctor shares her decision making process and experience with the dual MD/MBA degree.
  

Overall, expertise in medicine is not enough to catapult you to the next step in your career. The details of regulatory and policy issues are unfamiliar to most healthcare professionals. However, a mastery of these laws and rules is a necessary step if you want to attain a leadership role in the medical world.