Business of medicine curriculum that evolves to fit current physician needs
The Kelley Business of Medicine Physician MBA Program is unlike any other traditional or executive MBA program because it’s designed exclusively for physicians.
Our healthcare-specific courses teach you how the industry operates now, how it should operate in the future and how you can play a role in shaping this evolution.
Expert Kelley professors deliver the most relevant healthcare material available, which is constantly updated based on industry trends and feedback from our diverse cohorts of physicians and alumni. First, you’ll learn theory, and next, we show you how to apply these lessons to improve your daily work and your organization as a whole.
“Every last one of us wants to fix medicine, and the Kelley Physician MBA gives us the tools to do it.”
Celanie Christensen, MD, MBA’24Neurodevelopmental pediatrician at Riley Children’s Health in Indianapolis
All aspects of this program were created with you in mind. Our flexible delivery model is based on the physician learning style to increase long-term retention of knowledge. Our business administration medical courses translate best business practices into healthcare application, equipping you with the critical principles you will need to direct the future of healthcare. Your education is constantly reinforced in a variety of experiential learning opportunities, including:
Peer learning alongside other physicians from various backgrounds
Organizational projects to drive change
Consulting projects to test theory in a safe space
Lean Six Sigma projects to achieve process improvement
Class discussions to reveal a variety of physician perspectives
Study trips to local organizations to demonstrate various business theories in practice
Ongoing leadership coaching to address executive career needs and questions as they arise in real time
Year one
You’ll begin the program by learning core Kelley MBA curriculum, building a foundation of business knowledge and skills. Using examples from other industries—such as finance, marketing, leadership, strategy and operations—the core courses will provide a platform for translating proven business concepts into game-changing healthcare practices. This includes gaining an understanding of the link between healthcare decisions and financial outcomes; how to manage leadership communications, such as crisis communications, communicating change, and presentation skills; and how to use strategic analysis to evaluate and change organizational capabilities. They are the same skills used by top management teams of today's leading organizations.
Year two
In your second year in the program, you’ll apply this business foundation to the healthcare industry through courses specifically designed at the intersection of business and medicine—courses you will not find in any other MBA program. From specialized courses on healthcare delivery models, Lean Six Sigma and understanding consumer healthcare to traveling to Washington, D.C. midway through the program to better understand healthcare policy or experiencing global healthcare settings firsthand in India or Germany, these business of medicine courses will introduce you to new approaches, tools and ways of thinking that you can incorporate into your organization immediately.
Hear from our graduates about the transformative power of the Physician MBA curriculum
We host information sessions online for prospective Physician MBA students so they can hear our graduates discuss how the program launched or amplified their careers and helped them evolve as physician leaders.
Solidify your leadership training with hands-on leadership coaching throughout the entire 21 months of your Physician MBA. A specialized course and ongoing sessions with your leadership coach integrate everything you’ve learned to take your career to the next level. Develop a leadership plan, learn how to navigate the politics of your organization, get to know your own leadership style and work one-on-one with a coach to put your goals into motion.
Applied learning
The theory that you will gain from your professors and peers in the classroom is made real and applied in several real-world, consulting settings.
Leading and Managing Healthcare
Leadership is a unique and central component of the Kelley MBA. We kick off your MBA experience with a weeklong leadership immersion week where you dive into your current leadership style and gain the tools to improve your executive presence and ability to improve team dynamics and introduce change. This is where you will begin one-on-one work with your personal leadership coach.
Integrative Experiences
See a problem you'd like to solve at your organization? You'll have an opportunity to integrate business and clinical knowledge using a real-world challenge from the healthcare industry. You'll analyze the issue or opportunity and prepare and present a business plan or solution to industry and academic experts.
Global Healthcare
Immerse yourself in a global healthcare experience outside of the United States. This elective course offers you the opportunity to examine best practices from other countries as well as learn about their healthcare models such as clinical trials, medical tourism and operations in India or medical technology and device manufacturing in China.
Healthcare Reform
Travel to Washington D.C. to learn first-hand about healthcare reform and public policy through coursework at the Washington Campus, a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization educating business students and business leaders on the practices and realities of public policy.
Business of Medicine Physician MBA
Our curriculum provides the most relevant business theory to complement your healthcare background. These courses are the foundation of a rigorous Kelley School business education but also an MBA focused specifically on healthcare. They provide the principles and strategy that equip physicians to lead their organizations into the future.
Learn more about the integrated core business courses and the specialized, contemporary healthcare classes that make up our curriculum in the Kelley Physician MBA Program.
Year 1: Core Courses
Gain the skills to be an effective leader in changing times through hands-on learning experiences and scholarly study. Creates a personalized leadership development plan with a physician executive coach. This course establishes the knowledge and skills to lead at all levels of a healthcare organization, from the board level to group practice. Explores governance structures and collaborative techniques for engaging and working with physicians, clinicians, and external stakeholders. Complements action-oriented leadership development that occurs throughout the fabric of the 21-month MBA program.
Provides an understanding of how accounting information should be managed to ensure its availability on a timely and relevant basis for decision-making. Focuses on evaluating and interpreting financial reports and how to gain insights into a firm's strategic decisions from financial statements. Examines the value of financial control systems. Establishes a foundation for linking healthcare decisions and financial outcomes.
Examines how market dynamics and government reforms are driving changes in revenue models including value-based reimbursements, bundled payments, and risk-sharing incentives. Analyzes different types of integrated delivery models such as accountable care, medical homes, integrated delivery networks, and new legal entities to deliver care directly to employers. Defines an organizing framework for integrating revenue sources and delivery models with MBA core courses such as finance, accounting, and marketing.
Provides statistical and analytical tools for using data to make better managerial decisions. Examines how probabilistic decision models can improve decision-making in instances of high uncertainty while quantifying risk. Develops tools for analyzing data sets and drawing conclusions. Focuses on how the growth in availability of healthcare data is changing the practice of medicine and how physicians can use these tools to drive better patient outcomes, reduce cost, and capture value. Topics include decision trees, regression analysis, logistic regression, and Monte Carlo simulation.
Examines the process of creating a market-driven organization. Given a brand in its specific market, learn how to apply the marketing planning framework to segment the market, pick a target, and develop an effective positioning in order to use the 4 Ps—product, place, price, and promotion—to improve customer behavior in the brand's favor. Specific topics include marketing strategy, branding, market segmentation, market research and analysis, relationship marketing, social media, pricing, and promotion. Learn both product- and service-marketing skills.
As you hone your leadership skills and business knowledge, you will be partnered with an executive coach, who will work with you to meet your professional goals. You meet with your executive coach regularly in the second year of the program, which culminates in a leadership development plan. Through this process of highly individualized training, you leave the program with the skills and frameworks to orient yourself as a change agent for your organization, whether you are running a private practice, working in a group practice, or employed by an integrated healthcare delivery system.
Today's global economy demands leaders with an international perspective, and healthcare is no exception. In this elective course, physicians examine international healthcare delivery models, learn from other healthcare systems, and study opportunities for healthcare companies abroad. The course includes a 9-day international trip, and it is offered in year two.
Provides a working knowledge of the tools and analytical conventions used in the practice of corporate finance. Establishes an understanding of the basic elements of financial theory to be used in application of analytical reasoning for business problems. Explores the interrelationship among corporate policies and decisions. Discovers corporate finance principles transferrable to the healthcare industry. Builds the capability to link healthcare decisions and financial outcomes.
This course helps you to develop the expertise to become a skilled negotiator and manager of conflict. Learn various conflict resolution styles and strategies and understand when and how to apply these tools to resolve conflict and deal with disruptive behaviors. Comprehend negotiation processes and why they succeed and fail in different contexts. Develop your personal negotiation and conflict management style to engage more competently and confidently in complex professional interactions, such as those found in the healthcare industry.
Provides knowledge of the American legal system, its processes, and the substantive law itself, which is necessary for making informed and effective business decisions. Emphasizes the study of legal change, by considering past legal developments, to give managers sufficient insight into the dynamics of this process, enabling them to predict as soundly as possible the future legal environment in which their present decisions will bear fruit. Focuses on the legal and ethical considerations in a highly regulated environment.
Provides an understanding of key macroeconomic relationships in a global economy and how these relationships impact the healthcare industry, such as pharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostic and treatment technologies, medical care, and information technology. Develops insights into data that is used to interpret macroeconomic conditions. Examines how government policies seek to influence macroeconomic conditions and an introduction into the debate about the effectiveness of these policies.
This course provides opportunities to develop, practice, and receive feedback on various types of leadership communication. You will learn tools, techniques, strategies, and approaches to communicate effectively as a leader in times of great change, crisis, and opportunity. The course explores crisis communications, media interviews, advanced persuasion, and leadership presentations.
Introduces you to tools you can use to expand and grow your career, including physician executive résumé writing, LinkedIn, networking, developing an executive presence, and healthcare executive recruiters. Explores your unique brand in the professional marketplace and the value you provide to prospective employers. Provides access to healthcare executive recruiters, executive leadership coaches, and successful physician leaders who deliver inside perspective.
Year 2: Experiential Courses
Provides an understanding of how operations management concepts and tools can produce better quality, lower costs, and improve revenue. Examines how to improve productivity, maximize asset utilization, reduce waiting lines, shorten throughput times, and enhance the overall customer experience. Explores quality management concepts and tools with a focus on healthcare. Includes additional topics such as nurse scheduling, managing patient flows across units and the continuum of care, impact of facility design on patient and caregiver satisfaction, and managing emergency rooms and surgical suites. Identifies transferrable practices from other industries for the redesign of healthcare.
By improving operational processes, healthcare organizations can improve both the quality and efficiency of care delivery. In this course, physicians select and complete a process improvement project in their own organization, applying the tools and procedures learned. Prepares students for the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Green Belt Exam.
Healthcare is the largest and most heavily regulated sector of the U.S. economy. Physician leaders must understand how public policies are developed and how to navigate the regulatory environment. Enables physicians to discuss healthcare policy with policy makers and regulators in Washington, D.C. Allows physicians to gain a deeper understanding of the regulatory process and how this process can be improved through direct interactions with policy makers.
Explores the tools for strategic management and the complexities involved in determining long-term strategies. Examines the dynamics of the competitive environment and how the pace and direction of industry change are influenced by resources, capabilities, and competitive interaction of rivals. Learn strategic analysis methodologies and frameworks to evaluate and change organizational capabilities, the same tools used by top management teams of today's leading organizations. Applies strategic management tools to the healthcare industry, including hospitals, health systems, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biotechnology, information technology, and health services.
Today's healthcare environment forces physician leaders to use every tool at their disposal to create and maintain an effective and adaptable organization. A major source of effectiveness and adaptability is leaders’ ability to facilitate meetings, to assess strategic decision-making, and to coach others. This course addresses these skills and explores how to drive change from within an organization.
As you hone your leadership skills and business knowledge, you will be partnered with an executive coach, who will work with you to meet your professional goals. You meet with your executive coach regularly in the second year of the program, which culminates in a leadership development plan. Through this process of highly individualized training, you leave the program with the skills and frameworks to orient yourself as a change agent for your organization, whether you are running a private practice, working in a group practice, or employed by an integrated healthcare delivery system.
Today's global economy demands leaders with an international perspective, and healthcare is no exception. In this elective course, physicians examine international healthcare delivery models, learn from other healthcare systems, and study opportunities for healthcare companies abroad. The course includes a 9-day international trip.
The Integrative Experience serves as the capstone course for the Physician MBA program, culminating the academic journey by synthesizing knowledge from all core disciplines. Designed as a comprehensive examination of leadership and business acumen, this course challenges physician leaders to apply strategic thinking and data-informed decision making to address complex issues in healthcare. Participants work in teams to assess a multifaceted organizational or industry-level problem, drawing upon skills developed in strategy, operations, finance, marketing, and leadership. Through this integrative experience, physicians will engage in high-level problem solving, develop actionable recommendations, and deliver executive-level presentations to stakeholders.
Medical technologies, including biopharmaceutical compounds, medical devices, diagnostics, and data analytic processes, are a critical pillar in the healthcare system. Technology advances have led to increases in the efficiency of healthcare delivery along with improved patient outcomes. The pace at which these advances are occurring continues to accelerate and individuals supporting medical technology development require a broad understanding of the healthcare field to be successful. This course explores the critical importance of the medical products industry in supporting the delivery of care and the latest technological innovations.
Plan your path to an MBA
Review our academic calendar to learn when courses are offered so you may begin planning the degree to fit your schedule.
