A Prescription for Success

Health care is one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing industries. In fact, it will account for about 20 percent of the national economy by 2032, the U.S. government forecasts.

The increasing demand for services coincides with an evolving health care system perpetually adapting to complex needs and financial conditions. As the nation’s population grays, many types of health care professionals are in short supply. Emerging leaders must acquire a broad skill set to understand how the industry’s diverse elements — from payments and supply chains to finance and policy — intersect with patient care and affect strategic decisions.

Enter TCU’s health policy program, launched four years ago at the Neeley School of Business. It aims to empower medical students and working professionals to become leaders in health care management.

Ethan Vieira performs an auscultation on Lewis Jackson. Vieira enters a pediatric residency at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital with plans to become a physician administrator. Photo by Raul Rodriguez

The program, counting for nine semester hours and typically taking six months to a year to complete, is designed for people seeking education to advance their careers or to enhance their skills without committing to a full-fledged degree.

The graduate-level certificate program is an accessible, affordable option for people like Ben Moyette ’24 MBA. After three years of developing sales strategies for an ovarian cancer diagnostics company, Moyette was hooked on the field but knew he needed more education if he wanted to advance.

The U.S. Marine, who had a bachelor’s in business administration, enrolled in TCU’s MBA program and added the courses to complete the Health Policy and Management Certificate program.

Moyette credits the curriculum and small interactive classes, including the required Health Care in the U.S. and Challenges in Health Care Leadership courses, with helping him understand the complex medical system.

Before graduating, he interviewed for some enticing jobs, including at California-based Mirum Pharmaceuticals Inc., which develops novel therapies for rare diseases. Such diseases are often neglected in research and funding; their treatments are seen as unprofitable because of their higher costs and fewer patients.

Moyette said he impressed his Mirum interviewers by referring to information and case studies he learned about in TCU’s health certificate program. “They were like, ‘Wow, this is the first time we’ve heard a 30-year-old talk about [rare disease] drugs in that way,’ ” he said.

Mirum hired him at nearly double his previous salary as a regional account manager for Oklahoma and Texas.

“Really drilling down into the health care system got me this job,” said Moyette, who works remotely from his Fort Worth home. “It was the ability to talk about the business through a different lens.”

Melding Industries

The booming business of health care is an attractive bet for the future. But as the industry faces pressure to improve the quality of patient care and control costs through operational efficiencies, there is more emphasis on the business side of medicine. People trained in both business and health care who can make savvy decisions while acting in the best interest of patients are in demand.

“It’s no doubt one of the most complex industries out there,” with its own processes, revenue models and regulations, said Darin Szilagyi ’94 MBA, senior vice president of marketing and communications for Dallas-based Platinum Dermatology Partners and chair of Neeley’s Health Care Advisory Board. “That makes it very hard for a green, emerging talent to plug in at the director level or above. The risk of failure on a day-to-day basis is extremely high.”

In fact, Szilagyi said he wished such a program had existed when he received his MBA. “It would have helped me,” he said. “That’s the evolution of Neeley — where it continues to strive to meet the needs of its community.”

The certificate is, in essence, a steppingstone for businesspeople who want some health care education and for medical students who desire business training. That accessibility is what attracted Ethan Vieira ’25 MD, who graduated from the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University and tacked on a health policy and management certificate.

He is beginning a two-year pediatric residency at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. He hopes to become a pediatrician and a health care administrator, a career often referred to as a physician administrator.

Although Vieira had to cram in business classes amid his medical school courses and between applications and interviews for residency programs, “it’s totally worth it,” he said.

“It’s added a new perspective,” Vieira said. In addition to his focus on advocating for patients, he now understands the broader context of how the research, the availability and the pricing of new medicines figure into patient care.

Darin Szilagyi, chair of Neeley’s Health Care Advisory Board, says mixing business and health care is complex and presents unique issues. He is senior vice president of marketing and communications for Platinum Dermatology Partners, based in Dallas. Photo by Joyce Marshall

“Now I can see it from a different side. Although pharmaceutical companies want to make money, we also rely on them to come up with new medications,” he said. “I now have less anger toward pharmaceutical companies about the sticker price of medicine and a little better understanding of why it costs so much. But we have to find a way to make sure our patients can receive their medications.”

Skyrocketing health care costs, an aging population and chronic diseases like diabetes contribute to the significant challenges in the industry, already burdened by staffing shortages, funding issues and aging infrastructure.

As more hospitals and providers seek partnerships or mergers to achieve operational or strategic benefits, health care professionals will need a better understanding of business, including Medicare and insurance systems, and business leaders will need to know the intricacies of the health care system.

“I was talking to a physician at a football tailgate, and his physician group has an offer from a private equity firm and is in talks to merge into a big hospital system,” said David Allen, senior associate dean for graduate programs at Neeley. “They don’t know what to do; they’re not trained for that. That sort of is the point of what we’re doing in the business of health care.”

Practical Applications

“I picked up a lot of skills on how to be a good leader and how to advocate for people in the broader health care system.”
Amber Hawkins Dekoschak

TCU’s health certificate can stand alone or be part of a degree such as an MBA or MD. All classes are held online in the evenings to make it easier for students who may be juggling other academic, professional or family demands.

Starting this fall, TCU will offer a joint five-year MD/MBA degree. The university’s health education programs are unique among American universities, Allen said, in part because TCU has a medical school, a business school and a nursing school in close proximity.

Burnett medical students who pursue the certificate will learn business fundamentals not taught in medical school, including how to read financial statements, develop and implement business strategy and manage people, as well as principles specific to health care, such as insurance reimbursement cycles and various insurance coverages.

“I picked up a lot of skills on how to be a good leader and how to advocate for people in the broader health care system,” said Amber Hawkins Dekoschak ’23 MD, who is doing a three-year anesthesiology residency at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.

The certificate program also piqued her interest in the health care legislation process — so much so that she made plans to attend the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ May legislative conference in Washington, D.C. The conference tackles legislation that could affect anesthesiologists.

“I can see what the legislative process looks like from an anesthesiologist’s perspective and meet with senators,” Dekoschak said. “I learned through the health certification program how we can be impactful in whatever specialty we choose, and I can continue advocating for patients, which has always been important to me.”