How Occupational Therapy Assistant Role Overlaps with Healthcare Management

Feature Image Occupational Therapy Assistant Career

Occupational therapy is an area of medicine where professionals work with patients to help them learn or re-learn skills necessary for everyday life or work. As an assistant, you’d work alongside the therapist to execute therapy programs. If you attend school at an occupational therapy assistant university, some of the coursework overlaps with a healthcare management degree. Moreover, some of the skills needed in the field are the same as those you learn during your studies. At face value, these two disciplines don’t seem to have much in common, but they have some overlap. Here’s how this degree program and healthcare management careers intersect.

Know What an Occupational Therapy Assistant Program Is About

At an occupational therapy assistant university program, you’ll learn how to assist patients who have developmental disabilities, chronic conditions, or injuries. As an assistant, you’ll need to help guide the patient through certain exercises that the therapist recommends. You keep documentation of the activities and the patient’s progress. In an occupational therapy assistant program, you’ll learn clinical skills to provide patient care. You’ll also learn about physiology, anatomy, and rehabilitation strategies. Besides the hands-on training and coursework specific to your degree, some of what you’ll learn is similar to what is taught in healthcare management schools.

Know What Healthcare Management Careers Entail

In a healthcare management role, you’re responsible for the everyday functions of a hospital, nursing home, or other medical facility. Though specifics depend on the role and the type of facility you work in, your general responsibilities include ensuring that the staff completes work, everyone adheres to state and federal laws, and the patients receive the proper care. You deal with problem resolution among staff, patients, and possibly the patients’ families and suppliers.

Your duties may also consist of budgeting for the organization to ensure all departments remain at or under budget and that the company is continuously turning over a profit. You could also be responsible for monitoring the quality of care. Depending on who owns the company, you may work with the owner, CEO, or corporate office.

Skillsets in Occupational Therapy that Overlap with Healthcare Management

Patient care isn’t all that the occupational therapy field is about, though it is the main aspect. For instance, some skills in healthcare management can be used to increase the patient experience and boost operational efficiency. Part of running a medical facility requires a person to be able to look at data and apply it to various aspects of the business. That may mean financial planning for the future. In occupational therapy, a person analyzes data that indicates a person’s progress and uses it to alter the future treatment plan.

Sometimes, a person takes on more than just the patient care end when they’re in an occupational therapy assistant role. For instance, they may handle some of the billing, such as documenting care or taking on the administrative duties of a smaller practice, skills that you develop when studying healthcare management. You also learn about human resource management as part of your college degree. Particularly, in a healthcare administration degree program, you learn about ethical considerations, privacy laws (HIPAA), and regulatory compliance.

Why Leadership Skills Matter to Both Career Paths

Leadership is a major one. In a business management school, students may have learned how to manage a team, carefully make decisions, and encourage others to fall in line with a company’s goals. These same skills are also needed for someone who is an occupational therapy assistant.

Specifically, the skills you need are to be a strong leader and think on your feet. For instance, when you’re in an administrative position, you need to follow care plans accordingly, know when something could use a tweak, and advocate for your patients, organization and stakeholders. You’re also your patients’ cheerleader, helping them to get across the finish line, wherever that may be. You may need to train and monitor new occupational therapist assistants and even mitigate problems with team coordination and skill development, career progression, especially if you receive a promotion, such as becoming a supervisor.

Learning to remain calm during stressful situations is also part of your skill development. Your job also entails being a critical thinker to find the best solution while ensuring the patient’s care remains effective. Holding yourself and others accountable is also necessary. Some of these skills are necessary for a healthcare administrator to manage efficiently. An individual who takes on a job in this field needs to be a cheerleader to the staff and uphold all members of the team to the rigid standards implemented by government agencies. In a role in this field, a person has to make decisions on the spur of the moment to resolve problems quickly and efficiently, often needing to keep the company’s budget in mind simultaneously. Sometimes, family or patients come to you with their loved one’s problems, and it’s your job to solve them and de-escalate the situation.

Difference in Managing Departments vs. Healthcare Organizations

In an organizational healthcare management role you are manager of medical entities, like a hospital, nursing home, or other medical facility, on a large scale. Overall, you have more responsibilities and influence on the regular operations. You’re usually the one responsible for multiple departments and addressing major problems that the department heads can’t handle on their own.

Managing a department, on the other hand, such as an occupational health department in a hospital, requires leadership skills, effective communication, problem-solving capabilities, and the ability to manage a team. For the most part, the budget and other major responsibilities you have are decided by the administration, and often on a small scale, such as ordering office supplies.

Career Progression from OTA Assistant to Healthcare Management

You need at least an associate’s degree to become an occupational therapy assistant. Once you have it, you’re cleared to enter the field. As you work you are honing, elevating your skills and getting a feel for the healthcare management field. While you’re working directly with other healthcare professionals in different roles, you’re learning to use your skills, often in the clinical and clerical end of things. During this time, you’re establishing some of the fundamentals that are interchangeable skills in both administration and occupational therapy assessment.

If you’re considering going back to school to continue your education or are just finishing up your degree, earning one could be your next step in your career. Certain courses that you take in your associate degree program are prerequisites for your bachelor’s degree in healthcare administration program, such as math and English.

Some of your courses won’t transfer over, like therapeutic modalities and rehab techniques, and you may need to take a few extra courses as you’re transitioning to your new area of study. Refer to your academic advisor to guide you on any specifics. They’ll let you know exactly what you need to do before you can enroll in your bachelor’s program in healthcare management. Whenever you’re in school, depending on your hours, you can also increase your knowledge base and abilities by working as an occupational therapy assistant. Asking to take on administration responsibilities in addition to patient care duties can also prime you for managerial roles.

Final Thoughts

Occupational therapy and healthcare management might both be in the healthcare field, but they seem more like comparing apples with oranges. That said, there is a great deal of overlap between them. Even certain parts of the educational requirements are similar. It is up to you which you choose to meet your career goals.