Healthcare Residency Propels MBA Student to Early Success

For Steven Davis, the residency component of Baylor’s Healthcare MBA program created a pathway to leadership early in his career. 

In 2018, Steven Davis became the fifth member of his family to attend Baylor. The Oklahoma native was initially a pre-med student before pivoting to a public health degree. 

“I wanted to serve people in the healthcare realm and knew I could do that without becoming a physician,” he said. “Public health provided an opportunity to reach the broadest possible audience.”

During his undergraduate years, Davis spoke with several mentors who encouraged him to pursue a master’s degree early in his career, before the demands of career and family started to build. He considered a Master of Public Health but was drawn to the flexibility and growth potential of an MBA. 

Ultimately, the residency component of Baylor’s MBA program was the greatest draw for Davis.

“For students like me who did not have much work experience, the residency presented an opportunity to gain real-world experience and build a network quickly,” Davis said. 

Other healthcare MBA programs include a residency, but many involve competing against classmates for limited slots. Davis remembers speaking with a friend in another healthcare MBA program who applied alongside 15 other classmates for a single residency. The guarantee of a placement through Baylor’s MBA residency factored heavily into Davis’s decision to continue his education at his alma mater. 

After working as an adult immunizations intervention and outreach specialist for the City of Waco’s Health Department for nine months after graduation, Davis returned to Baylor to write the next chapter of his career. 

Newly engaged at the time, he was committed to remaining in Texas for his residency. With the help of the Healthcare MBA program leaders, he found an ideal fit in Houston as an Administrative Residency with HCA Healthcare Physician Services, a national leader in physician employment, practice and urgent care operations and hospitalist integration. 

At the time, Davis did not know whether he wanted to work in a hospital or an outpatient setting, or even the specific type of role that would fit best. At HCA, he had the opportunity to complete seven rotations in 11 months—an ambitious undertaking that placed him in a diverse range of roles and environments. 

Seven Rotations, Eleven Months

Davis’s residency rotations varied in length from several weeks to several months. These rotations opened a window to a different world, each with a unique set of challenges and opportunities. 

1. OBGYN clinic 

Davis’s first rotation gave him his first taste of an outpatient environment as he worked under the supervision of a practice manager in an OBGYN clinic. If he could summarize the value of the experience in two words, it would be “people management.” He had the opportunity to conduct interviews, learn to navigate corrective action and defuse tension that arose among staff members. 

“I applied what I had learned in my MBA course on organizational behavior to understand people’s perspectives, identify their triggers and de-escalate conflict,” Davis said. 

2. General surgery clinic

Davis began his second rotation at the general surgery clinic. While there was overlap between the two environments, his role shifted from people management to data management as he initiated the primary project of his residency. Based on the problems with insurance denials he had witnessed, he opted to dig deeper into these denials with the goal of issuing recommendations for a higher success rate. He limited his scope to HCA’s Physician Services Group Gulf Coast Division. 

3. HCA Houston Healthcare North Cypress

Under the supervision of the hospital’s COO, a Baylor MBA alumna, Davis had the opportunity to shadow every department at North Cypress. He attended monthly operating reviews with executive teams, participated in working dinners with board members and philanthropy groups and even observed several surgeries. He worked closely with the COO on his denials management project as well as an ongoing project aimed at building a special lounge area for recently discharged patients. 

4. HCA corporate office: strategy team

After an action-packed hospital rotation, Davis joined HCA’s strategy team in evaluating the acquisition of physician groups. In a role that combined business strategy and data management, he helped project how different physician groups could perform in specific markets. 

He also had the opportunity to join two separate CEO councils, which brought more than a dozen healthcare CEOs together to discuss shared challenges and offer insights. 

“If not for my residency, I never would have had that kind of access,” Davis said. “Listening to that group of CEOs exchange ideas was a highlight of my experience.”

5. HCA corporate office: revenue cycle team

Because his denials management project aligned with the work of the revenue cycle team, Davis was able to make substantial progress while also gaining more claim analysis experience with HCA’s revenue cycle team. 

6. Woman’s Hospital of Texas 

Back in a hospital setting, Davis worked under the Director of Women’s Services to build a 160-page new hire manual.

“It was tough work, but it is rewarding to think that the manual is given to every new hire at the hospital now,” he said.

7. HCA corporate office: physician service group

To wrap up his residency, he returned to the HCA corporate office to polish up and present the new hire manual from his previous rotation to more than 75 managers. He also presented his denials management project, which helped lower a 30 percent denial rate to 17 percent. 

Reflecting on nearly a year of residency rotations, Davis can draw a straight line between the practical knowledge he gleaned from his MBA courses—particularly courses in organizational behavior, Excel, healthcare finance and leadership—and his ability to navigate the most complex challenges he encountered during his residency. He also credits the support structure of Baylor’s Healthcare MBA program.

“At one point during the residency, I faced an ethical dilemma and turned to the leaders of my program,” Davis said. “They helped me make a wise decision, just as I knew they would. It was reassuring to know that I was never alone or unsupported.” 

Through his residency, Davis discovered that he most enjoyed working in for the revenue cycle team, which handles billing, accounting, payments and appeals. 

“Revenue cycle is all back-office work,” Davis said. “HCA only gets paid because there are tens of thousands of people negotiating with insurance companies behind the scenes. I like the challenge of digging into the financial details to make a wider impact." 

Davis’s hard work paid off when he was offered an associate role at Parallon, HCA’s revenue cycle company. He is currently undergoing a year-long training program that will promote him to a manager role upon completion. 

“My long-term dream is to become a senior leader at HCA,” Davis said. “Thanks to my Baylor experience, I am on the right path.”

What’s Next 

Are you ready to launch your career in healthcare? Learn more about our healthcare administration options:

Click here for more information on the Robbins MBA Healthcare Program for full-time, early career healthcare administration.

Click here for more information on the Executive MBA in Healthcare Administration for working professionals.

Click here to fill out a form to speak to one of our Enrollment Coordinators.