7 Reasons Why You Should Pursue a Career in Healthcare

One of the first steps to choosing a career path is deciding what industry you’d like to work within. The healthcare industry offers many career options in both direct and indirect patient care. If you’re considering a job in health services or the healthcare field in general, here are some reasons why they might be a good fit for you.

7 Reasons to Work in Healthcare

Working within the healthcare field can offer many benefits. Here are seven to consider, which can ultimately help you decide whether a healthcare could align with your career goals.

#1: Increasing Demand Means Potentially Greater Job Security

Job security is defined as “being able to expect continued employment, generally at the same job or company.”¹ This means that the employer would need to retain a certain number of jobs for a particular position or increase the available openings. Both of these situations would provide employees with potentially greater job security by minimizing the risk of lay-offs or position eliminations.

Healthcare jobs offer this opportunity as they are projected to increase 16% between 2020 and 2030 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).² This equates to about 2.6 million new jobs for healthcare professionals in the years ahead, and in a variety of roles. Among the roles included in these statistics are dental assistant, nursing assistant, medical records and health information management.

#2: You Can Make a Positive Impact in Your Community

If you have a desire to help people in your community, working in healthcare can help you satisfy this goal. Some positions enable you to do this on a one-on-one basis. If you work with patients as a pharmacy technician, for example, you can help ensure that each patient’s medications are correct and in the proper dose.

Healthcare workers in more indirect roles, such as healthcare accountants, can help businesses in this industry keep an accurate record of their finances. This enables healthcare organizations and facilities to understand their financial standing when making important decisions, which can also help them to create a more resilient business that offers services to local patients for years to come.

If you have a desire to help even larger populations, you can do that in healthcare too. Health and human services offers this ability, particularly when in a role focused on promoting public health.

#3: Flexible Work Hours

People can have healthcare issues any time of the day or night. To help meet these needs, many healthcare facilities are open outside of regular business hours. They serve patients at night, over weekends, and on holidays. Depending on where you work, this means the ability to have more flexible work hours.

Maybe you’d prefer to work nights so you can be home with your children during the day. Or you like the idea of working weekends and having a day off during the week to take care of your personal errands. Several healthcare jobs offer this ability, providing more balance between your work life and home life.

#4: Continued Education and Growth

As technology and medical treatments continually advance, so too does healthcare education. Professionals in the healthcare industry never stop learning and growing. That makes this a good field for people who like to continuously pursue a higher level of education and achieve greater professional growth.

For example, medical billing and coding requires the use of the most current coding systems. If old, outdated codes are used, it can hold up the reimbursement process. Staying educated about health coding changes helps ensure that health insurance companies are billed using the proper codes.

#5: Diverse Work Settings

Careers in the healthcare field also offer the ability to work in diverse settings. If you like the idea of working at the front desk in a doctor’s office, for instance, you can do this as a medical administrative assistant. Prefer to be in the exam or treatment room instead? Becoming a medical assistant could fulfill that interest.

Some healthcare fields even offer the opportunity to work remotely. Medical billing and coding is one. Health information management) is another. As long as you have a computer – and your employer allows it – you can perform your healthcare work duties from the comfort of your own home.

#6: Readily Available Education and Training

Numerous educational institutions are prepared to help individuals interested in pursuing healthcare careers. Enrolling in one can help you gain the knowledge and skills needed to fill a healthcare position.

For instance, at Ultimate Medical Academy (UMA), we offer a number of healthcare programs and degrees. Some of them are available online³, others are provided at our Clearwater campus. Clearwater campus programs are a blended training option, which means that part of the program is taken online with a certain number of pre-designated trips to campus for labs and on-site externships at a healthcare facility.

UMA also doesn’t stop at providing the education needed to work in a particular healthcare role. Our Career Services team is dedicated to assisting UMA graduates as they prepare to enter the healthcare job market. Whether our students need help with their resumes or want to practice for an upcoming interview, our team can help.

If you’re concerned about the cost of education or training, financial aid may be an option for you, if you qualify for it.

#7: Upward Mobility

Another reason to consider health careers is that some may offer the ability to move up within these organizations. Depending on the position you want to move into, additional education and training may be required.

For instance, you could start as a medical assistant, helping healthcare providers by collecting and recording patients’ vital information or assisting with an exam. Then you might decide to move into a nursing role, so you go back to school and obtain the education and training necessary to become a licensed practical nurse or registered nurse.⁴

Of course, if you enjoy the position you’re in, you don’t have to pursue advancing to a higher-level healthcare role. Working in this industry may simply offer this option if you ever decide that you want to move up. Whether you decide to pursue this option is entirely up to you.

These are just seven reasons why pursuing a career in healthcare might be a good decision for you. And if you decide that it is, Ultimate Medical Academy is here to help!