Education and Experience

• Health-care consultants should have a bachelor's degree. Many employers prefer hiring individuals who have an MBA. Additionally, some jobs require that applicants have either a certificate or a license. Some people enter this field right after graduation, but business experience or experience in the medical industry can be useful.
  
  

Skills

• A consultant must not be faint-hearted. People applying for these jobs need to be open minded, have incredible interpersonal communication skills, and have strong integrity. They need to demonstrate strong consulting and analytic skills. Additionally, they must be able to manage many products simultaneously and demonstrate strong organizational abilities.
  
  

Duties

• The overall goal of these individuals is to improve both the business aspects and patient care of a health or medical-related organization. Health-care consultants must assist in medical research. They need to contact individuals in the health-care industry and interview them about their opinions in medical matters. These individuals must analyze the cases of individual clients. In order to do so they need to create, compile, and organize client files. Other necessary tasks of this profession include analyzing business strategies, product development, and managing teams working under them.
  
  

Work Environment

• Health-care consultants typically work in a large-organization or consulting firm. The job requires them to work with many physicians and other executives in the health-care industry, but they do not typically interact directly with patients. These individuals follow a 40-hour work week schedule but don't typically need to work overtime. Many choose to work part time. Depending on the employer they may be required to travel.
  
  

Salary

• According to a June 2010 survey from Payscale.com, the average salary for a healthcare consultant is $73,478 per year. This equates to an hourly rate of $48.61 per hour. As with all salary surveys, this can vary significantly based upon employer, geographic location, years of experience, and other factors.