Healthcare Jobs- the Industry’s Inside Scoop

Hi, and welcome to Part 1 of my series of articles about the healthcare jobs industry in the U.S. Are you aware that the US spends more on health care than any other single nation in the world? 16% of the GDP is spent on health care- in the year 2007, the US spent 2.25 TRILLION dollars on healthcare, for a per capita average of over $7,000! That’s a lot of band-aids, and a lot of healthcare jobs!

So, what kinds of services are encompassed by the “healthcare industry”, anyway, and who provides them? What kinds of healthcare jobs are available? Well, in the United States, healthcare is provided by a vast array of individuals and legal entities. These organizations are funded by a mix of both public and private funds. In 2004, for example, the Federal government footed 34% of the bill, out-of-pocket expenses were about 15%, private insurance covering 36%, and state and local governments footing the rest of the bill.


Types of Healthcare Services


Ambulatory care- aka “outpatient” care, where no hospital stay is required
Home Health Care = Nursing services, ordered by physicians and provided in the home
General Practice- personal care internal medicine physicians
Specialty Practice- physicians that specialize in a specific area- oncology, for example
Non-Physician - Nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
Where are Healthcare Services typically administered?
Private Hospitals (usually operated by private corporations, for a profit)
Nonprofit Hospitals (usually operated by religious organizations or independent nonprofit organizations, or governments)
Specialty Clinics such as prenatal clinics, surgical centers, or family planning clinics
Hospice care (for patients with less than 6 months to live, typically subsidized by charities and/or government and provided in the patients’ home)
What other things does the medical industry do?
Pharmaceutical drugs
Medical equipment/ devices
Medical research


There are a lot of issues revolving around health care in the US. In 2000, for example, the WHO (World Health Organization) ranked the US healthcare system as the best in the world in terms of expenditure and responsiveness; the same survey ranked the US only 37th in overall performance and 72nd in overall level of general health. That study has been criticized; however, as when individual patients are surveyed, they report much higher rates of satisfaction.


The US remains the only industrialized country in the world without a universal healthcare system. About 84% of the population is insured through their employer, the government, or through the purchase of a private policy. There are also programs that exist, funded by taxes, to provide medical services to the elderly, the disabled, children, veterans, and the poor. In fact, the government spends nearly half of all the money spent in this country on healthcare. Federal law also mandates that emergency services must be provided to those requesting them, regardless of their ability to pay for said services. Health insurance is expensive, too- it’s cost is rising faster than either wages or inflation, and in 2001, over half of the bankruptcy cases in the US were attributed to “medical reasons”.



For all of these reasons, the healthcare industry in the US is going to remain a viable employer, providing lots of healthcare jobs for a long time to qualified applicants. Make sure you check back soon for part 2 of the series on the US healthcare industry!