Salary Survey
Opportunities improve for risk managers with right skills
The recent emphasis on error reduction in health care is creating new career opportunities for risk managers, with the overall outlook in the field considered promising. Income is holding steady for most risk managers, but it could increase in the near future as skilled risk managers become more valuable to employers, according to the exclusive 2000 Healthcare Risk Management salary survey.
Income is holding steady for the third year in a row; 1998 and 1999 had shown just a slight upward trend. This year, directors of risk management report a median income of $62,500, the same as last year and the year before. The median income for directors of risk management was $57,500 in 1997 and $52,000 in 1996.
In 1998, observers suggested the fast rise in income was the result of dramatic changes in risk managers’ job descriptions. The three years of the same results suggest that the market has adapted to the change in risk managers’ roles and further increases are not expected in response to that factor.
As in recent years, the largest block of 2000 survey respondents report an increase of 1% to 3% in income from the past year. Three percent reported a drop in income; 15% reported no change; 42% reported a 1% to 3% increase; 28% reported a 4% to 6% increase; 9% reported a 7% to 10% increase; 1% reported an 11% to 15% increase; and 2% reported a 21% or more increase.
About half report no change in staff size, with the rest split evenly between decreasing and increasing staff size. That is the same result seen last year. In the 1998 survey, 55% said there had been no change in their staff size, compared with 68% in 1997. In last year’s survey, 23% reported an increase in staff size, compared with only 2% the year before.
This year’s survey results continue to show a decline in the working hours for risk managers. Respondents report working a median of 41 to 45 hours per week, down from the 46 to 50 hours that were reported in 1998 and 1999. In the 1997 survey, 75% reported they worked 61 to 65 hours per week, way up from the 46 to 50 hours per week reported in 1996. Like the change in income, the decrease in overtime was attributed to the changes in job descriptions that had risk managers taking on new duties that might have been assigned to several other people in the past. The falling work hours suggest that the health care industry has accommodated the increased workload by taking on more staff or reducing the portion carried by the risk manager.
New opportunities on the horizon
The survey results may show a leveling of income and workload after recent years of increases, but the field is now ripe with career possibilities, says Fay Rozovsky, JD, MPH, DFASHRM, a risk management consultant in Richmond, VA. Rozovsky is president of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) in Chicago.
"Overall, this is a tremendous time of opportunity," she says. "We don’t have enough qualified risk managers in the country, and all the focus on reducing medical errors will just increase the need for people with the right skills."
Rozovsky cites the recent report from the Institute of Medicine as the catalyst for a major new focus on medical errors. Health care employers are jumping on the bandwagon and promising to reduce medical errors, and Rozovsky says they are going to turn to risk managers to get the job done.
"We’re still hearing about cutbacks in the field, but I think we’re coming to the end of that," she says. "We have to start thinking about what it takes to get us on track to patient safety and error reduction, and the person with the skill sets for that is the risk manager. We’ve been doing it for 20 years."
Bolster your organization
Similar thoughts come from Leilani Kicklighter, RN, ARM, MBA, DASHRM, assistant administrator for safety and risk management with the North Broward (FL) Hospital District and a past president of ASHRM. She says risk managers should look for opportunities to bolster their own efforts at reducing medical errors.
The Institute of Medicine report backs up everything risk managers have been saying all along, she says. Kicklighter suggests that risk managers use the report, and all the surrounding publicity, to push for improvements that might have received a poor reception in the past.
"If a risk manager could turn this into a benefit for themselves to get risk management issues strengthened within the organization, [they] should take every opportunity to take advantage of it," she says.
Even with the focus on medical errors, Rozovsky cautions that employers aren’t going to hand over the job to just any risk manager. She suggests that risk managers assess their skills and determine where they may need more education and experience.
"You will need a good knowledge base so you don’t get dazed by epidemiology and evidence-based outcomes or regulatory compliance in risk management," she says. "Take a look at what your facility’s needs are now and what they will be later. That’s where you need to concentrate in terms of your own development."
Expect more opportunities
Rozovsky also suspects that career opportunities will come with another increase in workload. That is particularly likely if health care employers cannot find enough qualified risk managers to fill positions. Risk managers also may see an increase in outsourcing and contract work, she says.
"There are only so many hours for the delightful risk manager to do his or her work," says Rozovsky. "We might be getting to the point where we have to develop specific skill sets and break the risk manager’s job down into manageable workloads."
Healthcare Risk Management mailed about 1,500 surveys to readers in the June 2000 issue. A total of 158 of them were returned, for a response rate of 11%. The results were tabulated and analyzed by American Health Consultants, publisher of HRM.