What Can You Do With a Healthcare Administration Degree?

If you are asking what can you do with a healthcare administration degree, the short answer is that the degree level decides the job. A healthcare administration degree is not one credential with one outcome. The ladder has four rungs: front office, health records, health information and management. The degree you can finish matters less than knowing which rung it puts you on and how you climb from there.

• Associate degree: points at the health records and health information rungs. It is a way into the field and a step toward a bachelor's, not usually a management credential.
• Bachelor's degree: points at the management rung. It is the typical entry credential for medical and health services managers, though your first job may sit one rung lower.
• Master's degree: points at the top of the management rung. It matters most for executive roles and for people who already have healthcare experience.

What this page does that others do not: every job is sorted by degree level, and every rung carries May 2025 federal pay and 2025 to 2035 growth. You can see the whole ladder at once instead of one job at a time.

These four occupations make up the ladder. Each entry gives the typical entry education from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, what the work is, and how people move up from it.

• Medical secretaries and administrative assistants (typical entry: a high school diploma or equivalent). This is the front office: scheduling, intake and paperwork in a clinic, practice or hospital department. It is the lowest rung, but the Occupational Outlook Handbook says some managers begin their careers as administrative assistants in a healthcare office.
• Medical records specialists (typical entry: a postsecondary nondegree award). These workers organize and maintain patient records. The handbook says some qualify with a high school diploma, most need a postsecondary certificate, and others might need an associate's degree. Employers may prefer or require certification. From here people advance to health information technologist or medical registrar roles, or to medical and health services manager, after a higher certification program or a degree in health information technology.
• Health information technologists and medical registrars (typical entry: an associate's degree). This is the first rung where a degree is the typical door. The work sits between clinical data and administration, and it is a natural bridge toward management.
• Medical and health services managers (typical entry: a bachelor's degree, plus less than 5 years of related work experience). Managers plan, direct and coordinate the business activities of healthcare providers. Common majors include health administration, nursing and business. Requirements vary: some employers hire candidates with an associate's degree, others prefer a master's, and work experience sometimes substitutes for education. Our guide on how to become a healthcare administrator walks through the full path.

The detail worth noticing is the on-ramp. The handbook says managers often start as medical records specialists, administrative assistants or financial clerks in a healthcare office. So the bottom rungs are not dead ends. They are where many healthcare administration jobs at the top begin, and employers may require work experience in an administrative or clinical role in a healthcare facility. Read the sources directly at the BLS page on medical and health services managers and the BLS page on medical records specialists.

Pay climbs with each rung, but not evenly. The figures below are national medians from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, May 2025, across all industries, with the 10th and 90th percentiles to show the spread.

Read the chart this way: the manager bar sits far to the right of the other three, and its lowest tenth starts above the top tenth of medical secretaries. The manager 10th percentile is $73,390; the medical secretary 90th percentile is $60,530. The median for medical secretaries is $45,930, for medical records specialists $51,140, and for health information technologists and medical registrars $68,020. Managers reach $123,860, which is $72,720 above the records specialist median and $77,930 above the medical secretary median. The takeaway is that the big pay jump is the move into management, not the move from front desk to records. If your goal is pay, the question is how fast you can get to the manager rung. The healthcare administrator salary page breaks that $123,860 median into its full band.

The caveat again: these are occupation figures, not pay by degree. A person with a healthcare administration degree working as a medical secretary earns what that job pays, and a manager without the degree earns what the manager job pays. The degree matters because it is a route to the higher rung.

The 2025 to 2035 projections from BLS Employment Projections, released August 27, 2026, compare each rung with the 3.5 percent average for all occupations.

Managers grow fastest at 24.2 percent, from 640,400 jobs in 2025 to 795,500 in 2035. That is roughly seven times the all-occupation average and about 155,100 added jobs, with about 62,300 openings a year. Health information technologists and medical registrars grow 15.9 percent, from 42,000 to 48,600, with about 3,000 openings a year. Medical records specialists grow 7.8 percent, from 200,700 to 216,300, with about 14,000 openings a year. Medical secretaries and administrative assistants grow 4.8 percent, from 979,000 to 1,026,100, yet they still have the most openings, about 89,200 a year. The reason is size: it is a far larger occupation, and openings include replacement of workers who leave, not only new jobs. The practical conclusion for a degree seeker is that openings are most plentiful at the bottom and growth is strongest at the top. A degree that moves you toward the manager rung puts you in the fastest-growing part of the field.

For the management rung, the setting changes the pay. The table below shows where medical and health services managers work and what they earn, using May 2025 national figures by industry.

Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national industry estimates for SOC 11-9111, the seven industries employing the most of these managers. National median for the industry, all ownerships.

Hospitals employ the most managers, 158,730 at a median of $134,050, and they pay $28,280 more than physician offices, where 80,410 managers earn a median of $105,770. The federal executive branch pays the most of the listed industries, $154,380, but only 22,820 managers work there, a much smaller pool. Outpatient care centers, nursing care facilities and home health care services fall in between, with medians of $116,060, $105,550 and $101,830. Remember that these are national medians for managers in each industry, not offers. Your pay depends on the employer, the size of the facility and your experience. What the table does show is where the jobs are: hospitals are the single largest employer, so a program with hospital internship ties points at the biggest market.

The associate rung deserves the most honesty. For medical records specialists, BLS lists a postsecondary nondegree award, not an associate's degree, as the typical entry education. That means an associate degree in healthcare administration competes with shorter certificates for those jobs, and employers may prefer or require certification either way.

Where the associate fits best is as a route into health information technologist and medical registrar roles, where BLS lists an associate's degree as the typical entry education, and those jobs pay a median of $68,020. It also works as the first half of a bachelor's: finish it, transfer the credits and keep working. The handbook notes that some employers hire managers with an associate's degree, but treat that as the exception, since the typical entry credential is a bachelor's. If you want to compare options, see the ranking of associate degree in healthcare administration programs.

The decision rule: choose the associate if you want to start in health records or health information soon, or if you need a lower-cost first step toward a bachelor's. Skip it if a short certificate would get you the same job faster and you have no plan to continue.

The bachelor's is the typical entry credential for medical and health services managers, and our ranking of bachelor's in healthcare administration programs covers the options. But plan for a first job below manager. BLS says employers may require work experience in an administrative or clinical role in a healthcare facility, and it lists less than 5 years of related work experience as typical for the occupation. A bachelor's gets you into the pipeline; the experience gets you the title.

The master's matters at the top. BLS says advancement to top executive positions may require one, and it pays off most for people who already have healthcare experience. If you are comparing MHA programs, an MHA is a master's in health administration. If you are deciding between that and a general business master's, our MHA vs MBA guide lays out the trade-off.

One path has a hard gate: nursing home administrators. All states require a license, and the requirements vary by state. Check your state board before choosing a program, because a degree that does not meet the board's requirements can leave you short of eligibility.

It pays off when it moves you up a rung, not when it sits on a resume beside an entry job. Use these rules by situation.

• Already working in a healthcare office: the strongest case. You have the experience employers want, and a bachelor's turns it into eligibility for the manager rung. Fit: bachelor's, or an associate first if you lack college credits.
• Starting from scratch with no healthcare experience: expect to climb. Get into a records or front-office job while you study, because experience is part of the manager requirement. Fit: associate, then bachelor's.
• Want patient care: this is the wrong degree. Healthcare administration is business and operations, not clinical work. Fit: a clinical degree instead.
• Want management but unsure it should be healthcare: a general business degree keeps more doors open. Our guide to business degree jobs shows the range. Fit: bachelor's in business.
• A clinician aiming at management: your clinical experience is the asset employers value, and the degree adds the administrative credential. Fit: master's.

We do not offer a return-on-investment figure here, because pay by degree is not tracked. The honest test is whether the degree moves you onto a higher rung than you would reach without it.

Our ranking pools hold 95 associate programs, 432 bachelor's programs and 367 master's programs, built from federal IPEDS data. Start at the hub of healthcare administration degree programs and narrow by level.

On any program page, check three things. First, whether it includes an internship or practicum in a healthcare facility, since that is the experience BLS says employers want. Second, whether credits transfer up the ladder from associate to bachelor's, so you do not repeat coursework. Third, for future nursing home administrators, whether it meets your state licensing board's requirements.

The rule to keep: associate for the records and health information rungs, bachelor's for management, master's for the executive suite.