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Who is a Healthcare Social Worker?
“To a social worker working for others is not a job, it is a joy.” — Amit Kalantri
Healthcare Social Worker is a professional who helps people by providing information about various health-related issues. He or she provides advice to the caregivers and awareness or education to the patients. A career as Healthcare Social Worker needs to manage patients and their families with illness, disease, disability, or hospitalization. He or she focuses on the patient's psychosocial needs, emotional reactions, and transformation.
The main responsibility of a Healthcare Social Worker is to support the needs of the patients and their families in curing their chronic, acute, or terminal illnesses. He or she provides counselling and advice with the best referrals and contacts. Read the complete article to know about what is Healthcare Social Worker and how to become a Healthcare Social Worker in India.
Healthcare Social Worker in a Nutshell
Healthcare social workers help patients to access services and information about health-related issues. He or she assists people with everything from locating medical treatment to assisting with the cost of care to recover from an illness or injury. A career as Healthcare Social Worker requires working with groups of people, individuals, and families in various healthcare settings such as hospitals, mental health clinics, child welfare, schools, human service agencies, nursing homes, private practices, and other healthcare settings.
Quick Facts for Healthcare Social Worker
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Industry
Healthcare
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Average Salary in India
₹30000
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Suitable for
Male, Female
Both men and women or any other gender can pursue a career as Healthcare Social Worker because the field is gender-neutral. Anyone with a related qualification and skills can opt for this career. There is no requirement to be gender-specific in this career.
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Any special needs
Yes
Everyone, including those with physical limitations, can pursue a profession as a Healthcare Social Worker if the candidate is passionate about a career as Healthcare Social Worker.
Table of Contents for Healthcare Social Worker
What is the role of Healthcare Social Worker?
Individuals who opt for a career as Healthcare Social Worker are required to provide assistance to patients for services. He or she provides help in assisting patients to access financial assistance and logistical arrangements. The role of a Healthcare Social Worker is to research, crisis mitigation, program development, and management. He or she coordinates the services such as medical equipment rentals, home health care, transportation for doctor visits, and others. A Healthcare Social Worker's job description also includes funding sources, doing paperwork, and searching for resources for families.
A career as Healthcare Social Worker provides assistance in teaching some of the issues such as living with cancer, HIV, childcare, Alzheimer, and many other such issues. He or she also organizes supporting groups and advice by participating in healthcare policy-making, services, and legislative issues. A Healthcare Social Worker’s work is more like a Counsellor's.
Educating
The most important role of the Healthcare Social Worker is to educate the patients and their families about illnesses and treatment or its cure.
Organizing
The role of a Healthcare Social Worker is to organize support and resources for the patients. He or she also requires planning and organising the supporting groups.
Counselling
A career as Healthcare Social Worker is to provide counselling to patients and their families. He or she also requires psychosocial assessments to know whether the case is mental or emotional.
Connecting
The main role of a Healthcare Social Worker is to build connections for the patients and their families to meet the necessary resources for treating the illness. He or she also helps the patients to understand the financial and emotional resources available to them.
Researching
A career as a Healthcare Social Worker needs to research the patient's health-related issues or any other related to this field. He or she also reviews the new patients admitted and also takes care of the patients discharging process from a hospital or clinic or nursing home or any other healthcare centre.
Documentation
A career as Healthcare Social Worker needs to document or do paperwork about the treatment of his or her patients and also maintain case files and records.
Types of a Healthcare Social Worker
In this section, we will be discussing the various Healthcare Social Worker career options or the types of a Healthcare Social Worker.
Social Worker: A Social Worker is a professional who works with various groups of people to support needy people or underprivileged communities. He or she develops solutions and provides assistance to people to cope with the challenges of life such as illness, divorce, or unemployment. A Social Worker also requires to research, intervene in cases, follow up with clients, documentation, and provide psychotherapy services.
Health Officer: A Health Officer is a professional who supervises standard sanitation and health conditions. He or she is responsible for identifying and interviewing the exposed or victim suffering from contagious diseases. A Health Officer also requires to visit the physicians, laboratories, and community medical centres for case reporting. He or she also provides documents on government-sponsored healthcare programmes like vaccination, VD control, mosquito reduction, and rodent control.
Counsellor: A Counsellor is a professional who is responsible for listening to people or he or she provides advice to people for their problems. A Counsellor's role is to help people to improve and solve their personal and emotional issues. He or she works either with individuals, groups, families, and communities to improve mental health.
What is the workplace/work environment of Healthcare Social Worker like?
The work environment for a Healthcare Social Worker is mostly in hospitals, outpatient centres, nursing homes, hospice centres, rehabilitation facilities, doctor's offices and NGOs, home health agencies, government, and private agencies, and schools. A career as Healthcare Social Worker generally works in offices and works full-time mostly. He or she works for more than 40 hours a week depending on the organization. A Healthcare Social Worker also needs to travel to look after the cases in different settings mentioned above.
Does Healthcare Social Worker require travelling?
Likely
A Healthcare Social Worker needs to travel to hospitals, schools, rehabilitation centers, NGOs, and other such places to help patients with their illnesses.
Employment Shifts
Full Time, Part Time
Individuals working as a Heathcare Social Worker can opt for this career either on a full-time or also on a part-time basis.
Work Place
On-Field, Office, hospitals, Healthcare Facilities
A Healthcare Social Worker usually works in hospitals and healthcare setups. Working from home or remotely working is mostly not possible in this career. He or she must be there on the field to carry out his or her responsibilities.
Presence in Geographical Area
Rural, Semi-urban, Urban
Time Pressure
Not Likely
Individuals who opt for a career as healthcare social workers will not have any time pressure as such but he or she must need to handle his or her patients with much patience, and emotions and must have understanding and kindness towards them as they will be going through some illness or distress. He or she needs to be mentally strong in this role.
Overtime Details
Individuals who opt for a career as healthcare social worker requires to work for some extra hours occasionally to finish the tasks or handling some of the patients may take some extra effort.
Weekly Hours of Work
Min 40 Hours
How to become a Healthcare Social Worker?
Steps to become a Healthcare Social Worker
If you are someone interested in improving the social structure of society and assisting patients in hospitals, nursing homes or NGOs then a career as a Healthcare Social Worker is the best career choice for you. If you would like to support the patients and their families to recover from their illnesses then opt for this career. We have mentioned below some of the steps for how to become a Healthcare Social Worker in India.
What are the skills and qualities required to become a/an Healthcare Social Worker?
Communication Skills: Individuals who opt for a career as Healthcare Social Workers require to communicate with a lot of people and groups, therefore communication skills must be an inbuilt skill for Healthcare Social Workers. They should be very clear, and confident and should be able to communicate simply yet in an understandable and knowledgeable way.
Organizational skills: A career as Healthcare Social Worker requires one to be organized as he or she deals with various kinds of people and groups. Therefore if a Healthcare Social Worker is well organized with the work he or she completes all the tasks effectively.
Emotional Stability: A Healthcare Social Worker must be able to handle the situations delicately and must know how to deal with patients who are experiencing an emotional breakdown or have personal concerns that are raising their stress levels and emotional anxiety. He or she must build an emotional connection with them and must show sympathy and empathy.
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Which certifications and internships can be helpful in becoming Healthcare Social Worker?
We have mentioned below some of the Healthcare Social Worker certifications that students can opt for to have a career as a Healthcare Social Worker.
Internship Availability
Pursuing an internship is very important as doing an internship helps in gaining practical learning experiences that the candidates must have learned and practised during their studies. Opting for an internship not only sharpens the candidate's skills and knowledge but also provides weightage to their resume and helps them to opt for their dream job or career. Many companies while hiring freshers consider internship experience therefore opting for an internship while pursuing the course is beneficial. At present many top companies are providing internships to students or freshers in the field.
Career Path Progression for Healthcare Social Worker
Junior Healthcare Social Worker
A career Junior Healthcare Social Worker is a professional who is responsible for helping people who are physically or mentally ill. He or she usually works under a senior Healthcare Social Worker as he or she will be joining in a fresher or entry-level position.
Senior Healthcare Social Worker
A career as Senior Healthcare Social Worker is usually an experienced professional working in a top position. He or she is responsible for providing advice to the caregivers and awareness to the patients about various health issues.
Healthcare Social Worker Jobs and Salaries
Junior Healthcare Social Worker
- Average Salary 20000
Job Description
The Junior Healthcare Social Worker job description includes educating patients and families about various health-related issues and providing them assistance. He or she is required to document every case and do a lot of research. Healthcare Social Worker is a professional who usually works with children, families, seniors, or another population or environment.
Salary Description
The Healthcare Social Worker salary in India may vary depending on various job factors such as location, experience, skills, and employer or company. The Healthcare Social Worker salary in India is between Rs 0.2 lakhs to Rs 4.4 lakhs with an average annual salary of Rs 2.4 lakhs.
Senior Healthcare Social Worker
- Average Salary 40000
Job Description
The Junior Healthcare Social Worker's job description includes helping patients or clients with financial situations. He or she maintains the record of every case and requires to communicate the patient's health status with the treatment team. A Healthcare Social Worker provides counselling or psychotherapy to patients and families and provides connections to help patients with outside medical and non-medical resources.
Salary Description
The Healthcare Social Worker salary in India may vary depending on various job factors such as location, experience, skills, and employer or company. The Senior Healthcare Social Worker salary in India ranges between Rs 2.8 lakhs to Rs 7.8 lakhs with an average annual salary of Rs 5.4 lakhs.
What is the job outlook for Healthcare Social Worker?
As India is a growing and popular country, as the population is growing the need for medical, hospitals, and industries are also growing over the years. The Healthcare Social Worker jobs in the healthcare system in the country depend on various factors. There are various Healthcare Social Worker vacancies in public, private and top companies. The Healthcare Social Worker salary in India is one of the best and most highly paid jobs in social work.
Frequently Asked Questions for Healthcare Social Worker
Que. What is Healthcare Social Worker and its meaning?
Ans.A Healthcare Social Worker helps patients to recover from an illness or injury. He or she acts like an educator, advisor, and coordinator of care to provide better healthcare to the people.
Que. Is Healthcare Social Worker a good career?
Ans.Healthcare Social Worker is a good career as it connects with patients and is a highly-paid job. Individuals who opt for Healthcare social worker career are meant to have great patience and a serving heart therefore it is a rewarding career.
Que. What is the Healthcare Social Worker in India?
Ans.The Healthcare Social Worker salary in India is between Rs 0.2 lakhs to Rs 4.4 lakhs with an average annual salary of Rs 2.4 lakhs.
Que. What are the types of Healthcare Social Worker?
Ans.The types of Healthcare Social Worker are Administration and Management, Advocacy & Community Organizing, Aging, Child Welfare, Developmental Disabilities, health care, International Social Work, Justice and Corrections, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse Social Work.
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