What Can I Do with a Health Informatics Bachelor’s Degree?

If you enjoy help­ing oth­ers stay healthy, and also love tech and data, a health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment degree may be a great fit for you. Com­mon­ly described as an inter­sec­tion of tech­nol­o­gy, health, and busi­ness, careers in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment allow you to work close­ly with physi­cians and oth­er health­care providers to ensure that patients stay safe and get the health­care that they need.

Let’s take a look at some of the most com­mon­ly asked ques­tions about careers in health infor­ma­tion management.

What is Health Information Management?

If you’re new to the health­care field and inter­est­ed in the many dif­fer­ent careers avail­able to you, you may be won­der­ing, “what is health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment?” Whether you’ve real­ized it or not, you’ve par­tic­i­pat­ed in the health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment process in the past. Each time you go to the doc­tor, you’re either asked to fill out new forms or to look over old forms to ensure that your infor­ma­tion is the same. Your health infor­ma­tion is essen­tial to allow­ing your doc­tor and oth­er health­care providers to treat you in a way that’s safe and makes sense for your body. This infor­ma­tion is man­aged by health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­als. Peo­ple in this role are respon­si­ble for ensur­ing that infor­ma­tion is accu­rate, safe, and avail­able to the peo­ple who pro­vide you with med­ical care.

What can you do with a health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment degree?

If you’re begin­ning to learn about the field, you may be won­der­ing, “What can I do with a health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment degree?” or “Is a health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment degree worth it?” There are many dif­fer­ent options for peo­ple who earn a degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment. Your oth­er inter­ests will play a role in the type of career that will make the most sense for you after grad­u­a­tion. Before you begin to apply for jobs, you’ll want to take some time to think about the envi­ron­ment you pre­fer. You may enjoy work­ing in a set­ting with chil­dren, or you may pre­fer a qui­et office. No mat­ter what type of job makes the most sense for you, you’ll have many options with your health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment degree.

Some of the most pop­u­lar career options for peo­ple who earn their degrees in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment include HIM direc­tor, med­ical coder, clin­i­cal doc­u­men­ta­tion improve­ment spe­cial­ist, health data ana­lyst, com­pli­ance audi­tor, patient advo­cate, secu­ri­ty offi­cer, and pri­va­cy offi­cer. Some peo­ple with degrees in this field also go into admin­is­tra­tive prac­tice man­age­ment, putting their under­stand­ing of health­care infor­ma­tion com­pli­ance and safe­ty to use by ensur­ing the prac­tice they man­age is fol­low­ing all nec­es­sary reg­u­la­tions to stay in com­pli­ance with the law.

Is health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment a good career choice?

As rules and reg­u­la­tions for health­care infor­ma­tion are con­stant­ly chang­ing to bet­ter pro­tect patients, the need for pro­fes­sion­als in this field is grow­ing fast. While the aver­age career path in the Unit­ed States is grow­ing at a rate of 7%, careers in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment are expect­ed to grow by 13% by 2026.

Earn­ing a degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment can allow you to work in many dif­fer­ent set­tings, includ­ing hos­pi­tals, pri­vate clin­ics, pub­lic health­care ser­vices, surgery cen­ters, long-term care facil­i­ties, nurs­ing homes, behav­ioral health facil­i­ties, vet­er­ans admin­is­tra­tion, and more. When you earn your degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, you’re open­ing your­self up to a world of pos­si­bil­i­ties. Most facil­i­ties that pro­vide med­ical care have strug­gles in the area of per­fect­ing their patient pri­va­cy pro­ce­dures, and a well-edu­cat­ed health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­al can serve them well.

School/Program Accreditation

When you earn your health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment degree, it’s key that you attend an accred­it­ed school. Let’s take a look at what it means for a pro­gram to be accred­it­ed, and what else you need to con­sid­er along the way to ensure that your hard-earned degree will help you with your career goals.

What kind of accred­i­ta­tion should I look for in a health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment program?

When you decide that you’re ready to get your degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, it’s essen­tial that you find a pro­gram that’s accred­it­ed by the Com­mis­sion on Accred­i­ta­tion for Health Infor­mat­ics and Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment. This ensures that your degree is legit­i­mate, and lets poten­tial future employ­ers know that the pro­gram you com­plet­ed was held to a high stan­dard. When explor­ing pro­grams, be sure to check out their web­site to ensure that their pro­gram has gone through the CAHIIM accred­i­ta­tion progress and meets CAHIIM accred­i­ta­tion stan­dards. If you can’t’ find the infor­ma­tion on their site, talk with an aca­d­e­m­ic advi­sor to find out whether the pro­gram is accred­it­ed. If it’s not accred­it­ed, move on. You don’t want to spend your time and mon­ey on a pro­gram that won’t qual­i­fy you for jobs after graduation.

Are there spe­cial­ized accred­i­ta­tions for health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment programs?

With­in your CAHIIM accred­it­ed pro­gram, you may have an option to become a reg­is­tered health infor­ma­tion admin­is­tra­tor or RHIA. The test­ing process for RHIA is run through CAHIIM. If you’re inter­est­ed in earn­ing this high-lev­el cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, be sure to talk with your aca­d­e­m­ic advi­sor about whether your pro­gram will pre­pare you for the RHIA exam.

Types of Health Information Management Degrees

When you’re begin­ning to research the options for get­ting your degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, it can be con­fus­ing to see all the options pre­sent­ed to you. Let’s take a look at the dif­fer­ent options and spe­cial­ties for peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in get­ting a bach­e­lor degree in health infor­ma­tion management.

What’s involved in earn­ing a bach­e­lor degree in health infor­ma­tion management?

When learn­ing more about earn­ing your bach­e­lor degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, you’ll find that there are dif­fer­ent options for get­ting your degree. If you pre­fer, you may enroll in a tra­di­tion­al school and go through the stan­dard class­room expe­ri­ence — trav­el­ing from class to class, enjoy­ing group work, and lis­ten­ing to in-per­son lec­tures. If you’re already work­ing, or if you’re a non-tra­di­tion­al stu­dent, it may make more sense for you to earn your bach­e­lor of sci­ence in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment online. This type of edu­ca­tion is wide­ly rec­og­nized by employ­ers as just as valu­able as tra­di­tion­al, in-class­room education.

Are there spe­cial­ties with­in a health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment bach­e­lor’s degree program?

As you earn your health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment bach­e­lor’s degree, you may find that your school offers spe­cial­ties to take your edu­ca­tion one step fur­ther. These may include becom­ing a reg­is­tered health infor­ma­tion admin­is­tra­tor, or RHIA. Oth­er spe­cial­ties include becom­ing a cer­ti­fied doc­u­men­ta­tion improve­ment prac­ti­tion­er, a cer­ti­fied health data ana­lyst, or a spe­cial­ist in health­care pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty. Pro­fes­sion­als in this role are cer­ti­fied to man­age oth­er employ­ees. To become an RHIA, you must sit for a stan­dard­ized test to earn your cer­tifi­cate. Talk with your pro­gram’s advi­sor to learn more about what you need to do to pre­pare for the RHIA test with­in your bach­e­lor’s degree program.

Online Programs

There are many rea­sons why stu­dents choose to com­plete online pro­grams rather than going through a tra­di­tion­al class­room expe­ri­ence. Many peo­ple who take class­es online work full-time, or may have chil­dren at home who they want to spend time with after a long day at work. Oth­er peo­ple who take class­es online may have oblig­a­tions such as tak­ing care of old­er par­ents or work­ing mul­ti­ple jobs. No mat­ter what your rea­son for want­i­ng a flex­i­ble sched­ule, there are many online class­es avail­able for peo­ple who want to earn their health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment degree.

Can I earn my bach­e­lor of health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment online?

For many stu­dents, earn­ing a degree online makes more sense than going to a tra­di­tion­al class­room. Even for tra­di­tion­al stu­dents, tak­ing at least some class­es online can save valu­able time and mon­ey. The cost of com­mut­ing back and forth to class and hav­ing to work on some­one else’s sched­ule can add up quick­ly. Many pro­grams allow you to earn your entire health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment bach­e­lor’s degree online.

When I get my online bach­e­lor’s degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment will I do work on my own time?

This is a great ques­tion! Some pro­grams that allow you to earn your bach­e­lor’s in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment online allow you to work com­plete­ly at your own pace, mak­ing it easy for you to get work done on your own time. Oth­er pro­grams require that all stu­dents in online bach­e­lor’s in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment cours­es be online at the same time. If you have a work sched­ule that isn’t flex­i­ble, it’s impor­tant to talk with your school to find out what kind of sched­ule your bach­e­lor degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment online cours­es require.

Certifications/Licenses

As with any health­care degree, it’s key that you’re cer­ti­fied to per­form your health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment job after you grad­u­ate. Let’s take a look at some of the cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and spe­cial­ties you need under your belt before you’ll be able to begin your health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment career.

What types of health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion do you need to get a job?

If you’re think­ing about earn­ing your bach­e­lor’s degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, you must under­stand exact­ly what you’ll need to do to make your­self com­pet­i­tive in the job mar­ket after grad­u­a­tion. Many nuances come with health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion ensures that you under­stand the ins and outs of the job. The Amer­i­can Health Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment Asso­ci­a­tion, or AHIMA, is the gov­ern­ing body for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in the field. An AHIMA cod­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion ensures that you’re prop­er­ly qual­i­fied to work a health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment job.

How do you get an AHIMA cod­ing certification?

To get your AHIMA coder cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, you’ll need to first choose which makes the most sense for your career goals. There are sev­er­al dif­fer­ent AHIMA cod­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, includ­ing reg­is­tered health infor­ma­tion admin­is­tra­tor, reg­is­tered health infor­ma­tion tech­ni­cian, cer­ti­fied cod­ing asso­ciate, cer­ti­fied cod­ing spe­cial­ist, and cer­ti­fied cod­ing spe­cial­ist physi­cian-based. No mat­ter what AHIMA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram you choose, it’s essen­tial that you ensure it meets your long-term goals. After you com­plete your cer­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ments, you’ll need to pro­vide your employ­er or future employ­er with AHIMA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion verification.

Careers in Health Information Management

When you earn your degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, you may feel over­whelmed at all of the career and work set­ting options pre­sent­ed to you. Let’s take a look at some of the most pop­u­lar career options for peo­ple who earn their bach­e­lor’s degree in health infor­ma­tion management.

What are the best health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment careers?

When you’re earn­ing your health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment degree, you must search out infor­ma­tion on health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment careers that inter­est you. The field presents many oppor­tu­ni­ties in a wide vari­ety of set­tings. While there are many dif­fer­ent options when it comes to choos­ing a health­care infor­ma­tion man­age­ment career, some of the most pop­u­lar HIM career paths include data qual­i­ty man­ag­er, depart­ment direc­tor, med­ical research ana­lyst, appli­ca­tions sys­tems ana­lyst, data­base admin­is­tra­tion man­ag­er, and health­care data analyst.

Where do peo­ple with careers in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment field usu­al­ly work?

One of the great things about the many health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able in today’s job mar­ket is the vari­ety of set­tings in which peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in a health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment career can work. While it’s nat­ur­al to think that peo­ple who have a bach­e­lor of sci­ence in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment jobs might only be avail­able in a hos­pi­tal set­ting, this isn’t true. Peo­ple who have their bs in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment jobs can work in pri­vate care set­tings, nurs­ing homes, col­lege health set­tings, insur­ance, schools, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, pub­lic health facil­i­ties, research insti­tu­tions, man­aged care facil­i­ties, and more. If a set­ting deals with peo­ple’s pri­vate health infor­ma­tion, they have a need for some­one who has their bs in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment jobs.

What’s the job out­look for health infor­ma­tion management?

If you’re inter­est­ed in what you can do with bach­e­lors in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment jobs, good news: the need for peo­ple with their degree in this field is on the rise. The career out­look for health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment jobs is great — a 13% increase is expect­ed in the need for him degree jobs by 2026, com­pared with an aver­age growth of 7% for jobs in oth­er fields. Com­pared to most areas, the health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment job out­look is pos­i­tive. If you’re new to the field, you’re espe­cial­ly in luck. Since the fed­er­al and state reg­u­la­tions for pro­tect­ing health­care infor­ma­tion are con­stant­ly chang­ing, com­pa­nies are always on the look­out for recent grads who know the ins and outs of the lat­est devel­op­ments in the field.

Health Information Management: Salary

If you’re ready to get your degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, you’re prob­a­bly won­der­ing, “how much is health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salary?” While many fac­tors can cause exact num­bers to fluc­tu­ate, it’s a good idea to look at nation­al aver­ages to find out if the cur­rent health infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy pay rate is suf­fi­cient to sup­port your lifestyle. Let’s take a look at some of the most com­mon­ly asked ques­tions about a degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salary.

What’s the aver­age health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salary?

If you’re get­ting your degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, it’s nat­ur­al that you’d be curi­ous about the aver­age health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salary. Many dif­fer­ent things can fac­tor into the salary for health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, includ­ing years of expe­ri­ence (both in and out of the health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment field), qual­i­fi­ca­tions, spe­cial­ties, edu­ca­tion lev­el, GPA, and more. Your salary for health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment will also depend on the cost of liv­ing in your area, as well as how com­pet­i­tive the job mar­ket is at the time you get an offer.

What’s the dif­fer­ence between health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salaries for an asso­ci­ate’s degree com­pared to a bach­e­lor’s degree?

Health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salaries are quite dif­fer­ent from the asso­ci­ate’s to the bach­e­lor’s lev­el, and it’s well worth it to fin­ish your degree. The aver­age salary of health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment for some­one who has their asso­ci­ate’s (2‑year) degree is $50,000, while the aver­age salary of health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment for some­one who has their bach­e­lor’s (4‑year) degree is $65,000. When you’re con­sid­er­ing your health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment careers salary, you’ll want to con­sid­er the ben­e­fits offered by the com­pa­ny in addi­tion to the pay­check you’re offered. When com­pa­nies offer perks (like pay­ing for your high­er edu­ca­tion, such as your mas­ter’s degree), it can mean that your actu­al health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment careers salary is much high­er than the num­ber on your paycheck.

What is the health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salary by state?

Of course, an HIM degree salary can dif­fer great­ly from state to state. The aver­age salary for health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment tech­nol­o­gy can dif­fer great­ly depend­ing on the cost of liv­ing in your area, as well as how high­ly in demand peo­ple with an HIM degree are at the time you’re offered a posi­tion. New Jer­sey, Cal­i­for­nia, Con­necti­cut, and Hawaii offer the high­est health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salary range, while Arkansas, Mis­sis­sip­pi, Ida­ho, and Geor­gia offer the low­est health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment hourly salary. Don’t make your deci­sion on where you’ll decide to live after you earn your degree based on the health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment start­ing salary alone. There are many dif­fer­ent fac­tors to con­sid­er when you decide if the salary of a health infor­ma­tion man­ag­er is enough to make you move to a new state. You’ll want to con­sid­er the cost of liv­ing, the cost of con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion, and whether the com­pa­ny to which you’re apply­ing offers advance­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. These con­sid­er­a­tions can help you real­ize if stay­ing put may be a bet­ter choice, even if the health infor­ma­tion admin­is­tra­tor salary isn’t as high as you’d ini­tial­ly like.

Mov­ing Up: What’s a direc­tor health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salary?

If you’re get­ting your degree in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, you’re inter­est­ed in more than just health­care. You also enjoy the busi­ness and tech­ni­cal aspect of the office, and you’re like­ly inter­est­ed in mov­ing to a high­er posi­tion over time. Under­stand­ing whether there’s room for advance­ment at your com­pa­ny can be an impor­tant fac­tor in how much your health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment bach­e­lor degree salary can grow over time. Expe­ri­ence and edu­ca­tion can play in large­ly to how much mon­ey you make as a direc­tor health infor­ma­tion management.

A direc­tor health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salary for some­one who is at the mid-lev­el of their career may be much low­er than some­one who has more expe­ri­ence and is near­ing retire­ment age. For mid-lev­el direc­tors, the aver­age salary is approx­i­mate­ly $67,000. This is quite dif­fer­ent than a more expe­ri­enced direc­tor, who makes, on aver­age, $79,000. Of course, years of expe­ri­ence are not the only fac­tor at play when deter­min­ing how much mon­ey you’ll make. Your GPA dur­ing your edu­ca­tion, your rec­om­men­da­tions, and pri­or work per­for­mance can all fac­tor into a com­pa­ny offer­ing you a high­er (or low­er) pay rate than aver­age. Don’t be afraid to nego­ti­ate your pay — often, com­pa­nies have a range that they’re able to offer appli­cants, but they can only do so if you ask for a high­er amount.

Over­all, how much do health infor­ma­tion man­agers make?

It may be con­fus­ing to under­stand how much does health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment make, since there are so many dif­fer­ent fac­tors at play when it comes to deter­min­ing a salary. The health infor­ma­tion man­ag­er salary range can go from approx­i­mate­ly $38,000 to $79,000, depend­ing espe­cial­ly on years of expe­ri­ence and cost of liv­ing in the area. Get­ting your bach­e­lors in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salary can be a great way to cre­ate a long-last­ing career that you love. When you enjoy the work that you do, you’ll love learn­ing new things and con­tin­u­ing your edu­ca­tion, mak­ing it more and more like­ly that your bach­e­lor of sci­ence in health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment salary will con­tin­ue to increase over time. Your health infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy bach­e­lor degree salary may start on the low end of the range, but can eas­i­ly hit the high end as you advance through­out your career.

Professional Organizations in Health Information Management

As a health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­al, it’s key that you become a mem­ber of pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions to help you with your career. These orga­ni­za­tions pro­vide valu­able net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment, con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion, and can help you in your job search. Here are three of the most pop­u­lar pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions for health infor­ma­tion man­age­ment professionals:

• The Amer­i­can Med­ical Infor­mat­ics Asso­ci­a­tion (AMIA)
• Health Infor­ma­tion and Man­age­ment Sys­tems Soci­ety (HIMSS)
• Amer­i­can Health Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment Asso­ci­a­tion (AHIMA)

Join­ing a pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion can go a long way in help­ing you begin and con­tin­ue to grow your career.

Relat­ed Rankings:

25 Best Bach­e­lor’s in Health Infor­ma­tion Management

15 Best Online Bach­e­lor’s in Health Infor­ma­tion Management

10 Fastest Online Bach­e­lor’s in Health Infor­ma­tion Management

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Health Infor­ma­tion Management

15 Best Online Train­ing and Devel­op­ment Programs