How to Become a Healthcare Analyst in 2025

Alex The Analyst

Healthcare isn&#039;t going anywhere and Healthcare Analysts are going to be a very popular career!  In this video I break down what you need to know and do in order to break into Healthcare Analytics!  ____________________________________________   RESOURCES:  💻Analyst Builder - https://www.analystbuilder.com/  📖Take my Full MySQL Course Here: https://bit.ly/3tqOipr 📖Take my Full Python Course Here: https://bit.ly/48O581R 📖Practice Technical Interview Questions: https://bit.ly/46pDqqL  Coursera Courses: Google Data Analyst Certification: https://coursera.pxf.io/5bBd62 Data Analysis with Python - https://coursera.pxf.io/BXY3Wy IBM Data Analysis Specialization - https://coursera.pxf.io/AoYOdR Tableau Data Visualization - https://coursera.pxf.io/MXYqaN  Udemy Courses: Python for Data Science - https://bit.ly/3Z4A5K6 Statistics for Data Science - https://bit.ly/37jqDbq SQL for Data Analysts (SSMS) - https://bit.ly/3fkqEij Tableau A-Z - http://bit.ly/385lYvN  *Please note I may earn a small commission for any purchase through these links - Thanks for supporting the channel!* ____________________________________________   BECOME A MEMBER -   Want to support the channel? Consider becoming

Transcript

00:00What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another video. Today we're going to take a look at how you

00:03can become a healthcare analyst. Now if you don't know my background, I worked at a small healthcare

00:14analytics company as my first aid analyst job. After that, I worked for a really big company

00:18called Amerisource Bergen. It was now changed to Syncora, but I always call it Amerisource Bergen

00:24because that's what it was called when I worked there. But I worked there for about three and a

00:27half, almost four years. I was a junior data analyst, then a data analyst, and I was promoted

00:32to a manager of data analytics. Now within those years at Amerisource Bergen, I was on a hiring team

00:37for about a year and a half. And so I would interview and be on a kind of a panel

00:41for interviewing people

00:42who were trying to become data analysts, healthcare analysts, business analysts. And then when I became

00:46a manager of analytics, I was the hiring manager. So I didn't have a team. It was just me. And

00:50I would

00:50hire data engineers and data scientists and data analysts to be on my team. And so I think I have

00:55a pretty good understanding of what hiring managers are looking for and how you can actually break

00:59into healthcare analytics. Let's get started by talking about kind of the elephant in the room.

01:03Do you have to have experience in healthcare to become a healthcare analyst? The answer is no.

01:08And in fact, I helped hire some people who had no background in healthcare analytics, but they were

01:13coming to work at our healthcare company and they just had really good experience with the skills.

01:18They had good experience in other areas and it was pretty transferable. So we knew that they would do

01:22a pretty good job. They just had to learn the domain. Now that was not always the case. I will

01:27say that typically we really wanted people who had a healthcare background, whether they worked at a

01:32different company, they had experience as a nurse, or they had some type of background with their

01:36education in healthcare because healthcare is really, really complex. And so having to teach someone

01:42the domain knowledge and maybe they have good technical skills, but they have no domain knowledge at all

01:47sometimes can be more difficult than trying to teach someone the technical skills. And they already know

01:52a lot of the domain knowledge. So just keep that in mind. You don't absolutely have to,

01:56but it is harder to get into healthcare analytics or work at a healthcare company. If you have no

02:01experience or domain knowledge at all. So if you have no experience in healthcare analytics,

02:05I'm going to talk a little bit later about how you can make that up, how you can get experience

02:09working with some of the data that you might use as a healthcare analyst and put projects on your

02:13resume that are directly geared toward healthcare. And that can be very, very helpful. Now going forward,

02:18we're going to talk about some of the skills that you need as a healthcare analyst. I'm going to talk

02:22about how you can make yourself as desirable as possible to get a healthcare analyst position.

02:27We'll talk about some things like portfolio and projects. And then we'll also talk about some of

02:31the companies that hire a lot of healthcare analysts. So let's start with these skills that you

02:35need. Now, before I dive into the technical, something that almost every company, when I was

02:39interviewing and when I would conduct interviews that I would ask is, do you actually have

02:44experience or are you familiar with EHR systems? Now EHR stands for electronic health record. These

02:50are systems to track patient data. You will see this at any hospital that you go to and they collect

02:56a ton of information in there. And all of these systems are kind of similar in what they track,

03:01but they do things very differently. For example, I worked with a system called Epic. That's a really

03:05popular EHR. I also worked a lot with Allscripts. Those are two that I just, I now have ingrained in

03:11my head forever, but I had experience using those in some internships and some things that I did

03:17before I broke into the data side of things. That's back when I was trying to become a doctor

03:21and a nurse and I was working and interning at these hospitals. I got experience using those things.

03:26And when I started applying for different jobs, they almost always asked me, do I have experience

03:32using these? And when I said yes, it always went a lot better. Every single time they were like,

03:36okay, good, because we need someone who knows that. So before I get into the technical,

03:40the domain knowledge of understanding what an EHR system is, you should look it up.

03:45You should go online, Google it, see if you can download some free version or see how these work.

03:49You need to know what they are, kind of how they work and how the data is in these systems.

03:55You don't have to dive super deep into this and go and work at an actual hospital and use the

03:59EHR

03:59system. But if you have some working knowledge of how it works, how these EHR systems actually

04:04interact with patients and doctors, that is very valuable. So I always recommend that if you have

04:09some experience or you've looked into these things and you feel like you have a really good grasp

04:12of these EHR systems to put it on your resume, because that is something that they will specifically

04:17look for. And in fact, it's so popular that they have certifications for Epic. I actually got one way

04:23back in the day. This was like seven years ago. I never ever used it, but it just was something

04:28I got

04:29through my company. And so I have an Epic certification that I got many years ago. And if my future

04:35employer had

04:35used Epic, that would have been really valuable. And a lot of companies do, but they used all scripts.

04:40And so it was just a little bit different, but I had EHR experience on my resume and I cannot

04:44express

04:45how important that is. I know I'm talking a lot about it, but I promise you, you need some EHR

04:50something on your resume. I'm trying to put it out there so that you are aware of it. So you

04:54know of

04:54it and you can do it. Okay. That's all I'm trying to say. The next things are more technical skills.

04:58So these are going to be things like Excel, SQL, a data visualization tool like Power BI and Tableau,

05:04and then maybe a programming language like R or Python. So let me break those down a little bit.

05:09So Excel is just at every company ever. You can manipulate data in it. You can aggregate data and

05:15do a ton of stuff within Excel, but you also use it to communicate with doctors or managers or

05:20different people who may not be as data dependent as you are. And so it makes it really easy because

05:25most people know how to use Excel at least a little bit. The next thing is SQL. Now SQL stands

05:31for a

05:31structured query language. They also have SQL databases, which can store massive amounts of

05:36data, way more than Excel can. And these SQL databases are very, very common at a lot of

05:42different industries and companies that work within healthcare. And so here you can query tons of patient

05:48data or insurance data or pharmaceutical data or all this data, and you can query it and return it and

05:53dive into the data. And whether they have an actual SQL database or they're using something like a CRM,

05:59which is kind of like an online database, if you want to really simplify it, but whatever system

06:04they're using, most likely they're using some flavor or type of SQL. And so I highly recommend

06:09knowing SQL. Those two skills are probably the most important, but then data visualization is just a part

06:15of analytics as a whole. So knowing something like Tableau or Power BI are very, very valuable to have on

06:21your resume. Although not every company is going to use that specific tool, they'll have some

06:26different flavor. They'll have some different, you know, small proprietary product that they use at

06:30their company. But if you know data visualization, you can pretty much transfer it to any of these

06:36different tools that they might use. The last thing was R or Python. Now I know both because I've

06:42been using it in my actual job and I worked on a team that used R, so I had to

06:45learn it, but then I

06:46used Python for kind of some personal stuff and some personal or, you know, projects that I worked

06:51out within the company. Both are very valuable. I think personally that Python is more ubiquitous.

06:57You're going to see it at more companies, but if you really like the statistics side of things,

07:01R tends to be a little bit more statistics heavy and easier to use, I would say. And so if

07:07you really

07:07love the statistical side of things, R is great. But if you want a more general purpose programming

07:12language, Python is also great. I will give a plug to myself here because I have free tutorials on

07:17everything I just said, except for R, which I'm actually going to release in, you know, maybe a

07:21month or two. So maybe when you're watching this, I already have the R series out there, but I have

07:26full tutorials on MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server, on Excel, on Power BI, on Tableau, on Python, and other

07:33things as well. And so I have tons of free stuff. Or if you want my full courses, I have

07:38those on

07:38analystbuilder.com. So you can go and check those out as well. They just go more in depth. So those

07:43are

07:43the skills that you need. Let's jump into the next thing, which is what companies actually hire

07:48healthcare analysts. Now, believe it or not, there are a ton of companies within the healthcare world,

07:53and they all do different things. They all work with different types of data. And so I'm going to

07:58kind of just throw a ton of stuff at you, and you can go and do your own research because

08:03there's so many

08:04companies out there. Let's start with working at an actual hospital. Healthcare analysts are often

08:09hired within the actual hospital to work directly with nurses and doctors and, you know, the data

08:14team within that company. And you'll be within a hospital and you'll see these doctors every single

08:19day. So this could be something like the Mayo Clinic or Johns Hopkins, or just your local hospital

08:24is very common for even smaller local hospitals to have some type of small data team. Now, these

08:29hospitals are typically going to work with patient data very directly. So you're going to kind of be

08:33aggregating and looking at patient data as a whole. You may also work with the operations of the

08:38hospital. So how many beds do we actually have open? How many rooms? When are the peak times during

08:43the day or during the week or during the year? And you can create dashboards that people can actually

08:47look at and they can say, okay, we're coming up on a really busy season. Let's hire a few more

08:52nurses

08:52or traveling nurses to be sure that we can, you know, handle this amount of patients. And so you'll often

08:58work with management or the doctors, and you work with a lot of patient data. Next would be

09:03insurance companies. And these should be one that most people are familiar with, especially in the

09:07United States. We have so many insurance companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Health, Cigna,

09:12Aetna, or a local one, like I've mentioned before. Within these healthcare companies, healthcare

09:16analysts will typically work with something called claims data. Now I've worked with more claims data

09:21than I would ever have liked to because claims data is insane. It's just very complex, very difficult,

09:27and there's so much of it. And that's why they hire healthcare analysts because it's kind of tough to

09:32work with. And so to give you an example of how claims data works, let's say I go to a

09:36hospital,

09:37I have to get a surgery. Well, that doctor is going to note that you perform this surgery and

09:42they're going to bill your insurance. That's this insurance company over here. So when they bill the

09:46insurance, the insurance is going to either approve or deny, but it's going to create a claim saying,

09:51hey, you owe this hospital X amount of money. And so they can either deny it or they approve it,

09:56but let's say they approve it and they send that money back to the doctor that they owe them.

09:59I then of course need to pay my copay or I need to pay my deductible to make sure that

10:06the insurance

10:06company gets however much money I'm supposed to be paying. It's a very convoluted system and it's

10:11very complex. And so that is something that a lot of data, a lot of insurance companies hire

10:16analysts for. The next type of company that hires a lot of healthcare analysts is going to be

10:21pharmaceutical companies. That's going to include companies like Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson,

10:25are a ton of others because there's so many pharmaceutical companies out there. These

10:29companies will actually research and develop drugs and they'll produce them and then they ship them

10:33out and they make a lot of money from that. And so they have to require a lot, an immense

10:39amount of

10:39data you would not believe. Now, I actually got to work with Johnson & Johnson and a few of these

10:43other companies on a lot of clinical trials. I got to work specifically with the doctors and the data

10:48teams doing some double blind studies to look at the efficacy of some of these drugs. So I have a

10:53lot

10:53of hands-on knowledge of this area. And the data would often be looking at, okay, we're taking this

10:58drug. Let's just say a really simple example. We're looking at Tylenol. Tylenol, we want to make a

11:03different variation of it. So let's create it and let's start giving it to a certain population of

11:08people. The other population will just give maybe the regular one. And then we want to compare and we

11:13want to see how did this drug perform? Was it better? Was it worse? Were there different side effects?

11:19There's all this data that's being collected and you work with data engineers and data scientists

11:23analysts and everybody to work together to figure out if this is actually a really good drug that's

11:28helping people or it is not. Next would be something like a government agency. One that I think most

11:34people would know of is the World Health Organization. But within your country or within your city or

11:40whatever, there's gonna be lots of smaller health organizations that do with, you know, county health

11:45or your state health or your country's health or something like the World Health Organization, which

11:50covers a lot of different countries. For example, the World Health Organization tracks a lot of

11:54different diseases. And one that I've used in the past as an example, something like malaria. That is

11:59something that they track really closely because if malaria is to spread, it's supposed to a lot of

12:03countries and affects a lot of people. And so they track an immense amount of data on malaria. Now they

12:09do

12:09have systems in place to collect this data, but those things are often monitored by healthcare analysts.

12:14They want to make sure that the data that's coming in is accurate and cleaned and is used in order

12:19to

12:19really closely track if it's spreading into different areas, if there's higher concentrations in specific

12:24areas, and they need more vaccines or shots in that area. And so this is very active and kind of

12:29living

12:29data that they're working with to help really control a lot of different diseases or different things that

12:35are happening around the world. Now we're about to jump into some projects and some things on your resume that

12:39I

12:40would recommend. But when it comes to projects and building kind of these personal projects, you can add to your

12:44resume to make you more attractive to employers. One thing I'm going to tell you, and this is kind of

12:48like

12:49the secret sauce that some people talk about, some people don't. I really want you to know this.

12:54It's kind of on the same line of having that EHR system on your resume. Having these specific things

13:00in your resume is also a big, big boost. This is going to be coding and classification data. And at

13:05every

13:06single company that I've ever worked with, I've even done consulting outside of it, they all use this type of

13:12data. And this is very, very, very important for you to understand, is that this is used at every single

13:17stage of the healthcare process. It's ICD codes, CPT codes, LOINC codes, HCPCS codes, all these different

13:24types of codes are things that are used through the entire process of working with healthcare data. The two

13:29that I would specifically look into, and these are the ones that I worked with the most, are ICD codes.

13:35So these

13:35are codes that help identify different diseases and procedures. They used to be ICD-10 codes, but they

13:41update it to ICD-11 codes. So if you want to kind of dive into the diagnosis and the medical

13:47stuff,

13:48that is 100% where you should start. That is the best place to start. The next one is CPT

13:54codes.

13:54These are used for tracking procedures and services. So if you go into a hospital and you just check in,

14:00they're going to say, hey, this person checked into the hospital. That's a CPT code. Or hey, they went in

14:05to get a colonoscopy. That's a CPT code. It's not a diagnosis. It's not saying you have, you know,

14:11colon cancer. That would be an ICD-11 code. And there's a very specific code. Now in the next

14:18lesson in the series, I'm going to be diving into the real data. And I will look at ICD codes,

14:22HCPCS codes, CPT, LOINC, and I will talk about how those are used, what those look like, and what you

14:28need to know. So that's in the next lesson where I dive into the actual healthcare data. And I think

14:32that's

14:32going to be a really fun one for me. So when you're looking at your resume, let's say you have

14:36no healthcare experience and you don't have a degree in it and you haven't worked at a hospital

14:40before. Something that you can do is you can build projects with this data. So I would go online. I'd

14:45try to find some patient data, whether that's on Kaggle or that's on, you know, Google data search,

14:50or you can find it on data.gov and you can find real healthcare data there. I would try to

14:55find

14:55something that has those types of codes in it, CBT or ICD codes, because you can specifically mention

15:02that in your project on your resume. And I promise you, they're going to be like, wow,

15:06okay, what do you know about ICD codes? What do you know about CBT codes? We use that all the

15:10time

15:10here. Tell me about that. Because they want somebody who already knows that because that stuff

15:15is complicated and it can be very easy on surface, but it gets very, very challenging when you really

15:21start using it. And so building out a project and putting that on your resume, 100% recommend. I think

15:26that is a fantastic, fantastic thing to do. Now I'm not going to be diving into creating a full

15:31kind of healthcare analyst resume. I have separate full videos on how to create a data analyst

15:35resume. And I would basically take that resume and that template that I have in that video

15:39and just apply some of the things that we've talked about in this one, which is including ICD,

15:43CBT, you know, those codes that we talked about as well as EHR system. And if you have any experience,

15:48be sure to mention that. That is what I would do, but go and watch. I'll have a link down

15:52below,

15:53or you can just search Alex the analyst data analyst resume. It will come up, but definitely create a

15:57really good resume that is healthcare oriented for healthcare analyst positions. So if you followed

16:03those steps, you know, the skills, you've looked at EHR systems, you looked at the CPT and ICD codes,

16:08you've added those to your resume, you're ready to go. Here's what I would do is I would look at

16:13local companies that are healthcare related and reach out to them, try to apply to local healthcare

16:18companies. I wouldn't go big and start applying to like really big companies. You can, there's nothing

16:23against that, but you're going to have better luck if you're finding something local. I just,

16:27in this market, I found that to be true. You can also reach out to the recruiters at those companies

16:32and you can send them your resume. You can say, Hey, I'm looking for, you know, jobs in healthcare

16:36analytics. I think your company is great, but make sure that they are all healthcare related because

16:40they're not really going to hire healthcare analytics outside of healthcare companies like we

16:45discussed in this video. If you want a lot more advice on how to land interviews and then also nail

16:49those interviews. I have tons of videos on how to do that because again, I was once a data analyst

16:54just starting out and then I was also hiring at one point. And so I know both sides of it.

16:58So I feel

16:59like I have some pretty good advice on how to nail those interviews. So I hope that that was helpful.

17:03I talked about a ton of stuff, even the kind of the secret sauce behind it that I think is

17:08really

17:08important that not a lot of people will mention or talk about specifically the EHR systems and the

17:13codings like HixPix and LOINC and CPT and ICD. I think if I had known about those back in the

17:18day,

17:18I would have been able to get a job in healthcare or healthcare analytics much faster, but I didn't.

17:24And so I'm trying to help mentor you. I try to help teach you some of the things that I've

17:27learned

17:27over my, you know, six or seven years in healthcare analytics. And I really do hope that you use it.

17:32And that is very helpful to you. If you liked this video, be sure to like and subscribe,

17:37and I will see you in the next video.

17:50I'll see you in the next video.

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