BA Healthcare Domain- A Promising Career Choice

Choosing to pursue a career in Healthcare domain as a Business Analyst, you could as a business analyst make a valuable impact on people’s lives. It may sound impossible, but Business Analysts work hand-in-hand with Healthcare professionals to achieve better prospective on a daily basis.

Business Analysts involve in analyzing the customer needs, describing the data flows of a product, writing use cases or requirements or flow charts, re-engineering the existing process and evaluating the resulting product. The modern Healthcare system demands excellent coordination between the interdisciplinary teams which upholds the importance of having BA professionalsin any organization.

BA Professionals must have the zeal to explore various business processes and must have the ability to interpret the use cases in each Patient-Healthcare professional’s interface. Business Analysts should also have sound knowledge in software, hardware systems, system behavior, data exchange, data security and all applicable healthcare standards.

Educational requirements

A minimum of Bachelor’s degree in healthcare management, business administration or related fields is essential to start the Business Analyst training. There are other certifications available if you wish to gain mastery in the subject. Usually the tests will be online and at the end, the applicant would receive a certificate with the transcript number to authenticate professionals. The certifications are offered in Healthcare Administration, Health Insurance, Medical Billing, Healthcare Industry Knowledge, HIPAA (both privacy and security), Medical Terminology, etc. Few universities even offer related degrees on different subjects.

How to start?

One has to identify the area of interest to learn all the intricacies associated with it. Focus on the current project that you are working on and try to explore all the other related subjects to gain knowledge and experience. Get familiar with the Healthcare terminologies and the data flows, different protocols that are involved, and the standards of interoperability.

Learning curve

Acquire required skills to become a successful Business Analyst which demands taking up of various responsibilities. One has to learn to prepare reports, perform healthcare data analysis, data validation, acquiring the specific requirements or use cases by interacting with the clients, writing functional specifications, performing data flow or work flow analysis, to work in coordination between clients and the company and also providing support to the project management team.

BA training also provides knowledge on developing acceptance test plans, analytical expertise to improve data quality, providing suggestions to improve the overall process and recommending apt models to minimize the workloads.

Nature of work

A typical Business Analyst work starts with re-engineering the existing system. Study the existing system, define a problem, highlight the section that needs improvement and calculate the cost and work involved. A healthcare Business Analyst has to create and implement both reports and analysis which helps to increase the efficiency of management initiatives and strategies.

Analysts work in pairs within the team to break down the work and manage different components. Then they perform research and acquire data. Once the groundwork is complete, they will have to come up with their renewed findings and potential solutions. Computer software or mathematical models might be used for testing purposes. Once all the potential solutions are put forth, the best model is picked by the team which fits perfectly into the requirements.

BA professional is responsible for managing the outcome of projects and works as a liaison between the organization and clients. BA professional has to make sure that the client’s expectations and requirements are met, required healthcare protocols have been thoroughly followed, and the healthcare standards have been met.

Be a Domain Expert

Get a specialization in a particular domain to develop your BA profile and stay ahead of the competition in the business with your healthcare domain knowledge and expertise. Being a domain expert, you can increase the chances of your eligibility to apply for quality job positions. Being a domain expert you will have the authority to demand much higher billing rates compared to generic BA counterparts.