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Comparison of MHSA to MBA

The health care industry consumes more than 14 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Managers in this growing sector require rigorous management training along with specialized training in the unique aspects of the American health care industry. The MHSA curriculum at the University of Michigan School of Public Health provides just such training. Our program parallels a traditional MBA program, yet each course is designed to meet the needs of managers in the health care sector. For example:

• The finance class teaches not only for-profit financing, but prepares students for careers which may include jobs in not-for-profit firms, which are common in this industry, or in the public sector.
• The accounting class devotes less time to such matters as inventory management and more time toward accounting requirements of Medicare and Medicaid.
• The marketing class teaches the basics of marketing in the context of a health care environment with multiple types of customers, each with unique objectives and incentives.
• The economics sequence recognizes that understanding today’s health care environment requires analytic tools that go beyond standard economic theory. It therefore supplements the semester of standard economics with a semester on the economics of the health care sector.

Rather than offer classes pertinent to other economic sectors but of little pertinence to health care, such as international business, our curriculum includes specialized courses that teach topics necessary to be at the leading edge of health systems administration. These include courses in:

• The history, structure, and operation of the United States health care system
• How quality is conceptualized and measured in health care.
• The unique legal, regulatory, and reimbursement environment of the health care sector.
• The politics of health care.

The MHSA program, because of its specialized generalized focus, provides students with the working knowledge they need to be effective managers and leaders in the field. Curriculums that offer only a few courses specific to health care, as is typical in MBA programs, are not sufficient to capture all the information that distinguishes management in the health care industry from management in other industries.

The faculty in the department of health management and policy are nationally and internationally recognized leaders in this field. They are authors of textbooks and editors of many journals. They sit on national and international advisory boards and consult with a wide range of firms in the industry. For the past 10 years, US News and World Report has recognized this program as the leader in the field of teaching health management among all health management programs including those based in Schools of Public Health and Business Schools. Moreover, our long tradition of excellence has resulted in a large and distinguished pool of alumni who are leaders in health care delivery and who provide support, such as summer internships and ongoing guidance, for current students.