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Overview of Health Information Management Careers

Find out what health information management careers are like.

The Basics

What you'll do: Design and manage health information systems to ensure they meet medical, legal and ethical standards. You'll make sure patient medical records are complete, accurate and made available only to those directly involved with that patient's care. You'll be responsible for database management and for designing, generating and analyzing reports for administrators and physicians.

Where you'll work: Hospitals, doctors' offices, home health agencies, nursing homes, public health offices and insurance companies.

Degree you'll need: Bachelor's degree at minimum

Median annual salary: $51,280 – $84,270

Cities with highest employment levels: New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia, Houston, Baltimore, Phoenix

 

Health Information Management Education and Certification

health information management career professional

In order to become a health information manager, you'll need to earn a bachelor's or master's degree in health information management from a school accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education (CAHIIM.). You'll also need to earn the Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA) certification from the American Health Information Management Association. While both bachelor's and master's programs will prepare you to sit for the RHIA certification exam, master's programs tend to incorporate more general management training.

Health Information Management Career Outlook

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) expects employment opportunities for health information managers to grow faster than average for all occupations through 2018. According to the BLS, about 38 percent of all health services managers work in hospitals, 19 percent work in doctor's offices or nursing care facilities, and the remaining 43 percent work in other health care settings. Much of the job growth over the next 10 years is expected to occur in health care agencies other than hospitals.