Healthcare Social Workers
Healthcare Social Workers is the O*NET name for people who provide individuals, families, and groups with the psychosocial support needed to cope with chronic, acute, or terminal illnesses. The skills rated most useful are social perceptiveness, speaking, and service orientation. The job can ask you to advocate for clients or patients to resolve crises. The strongest interest signal is Social (6.9 of 7), then Investigative (4.2) and Conventional, which gives it the code SIC. Getting in usually takes graduate school and often five years or more of related experience, a level O*NET calls extensive preparation. People who want helping, teaching or caring for people usually fit better here than those who need hands-on work with tools, machines or the physical world.
What they do
Provide individuals, families, and groups with the psychosocial support needed to cope with chronic, acute, or terminal illnesses. Services include advising family caregivers. Provide patients with information and counseling, and make referrals for other services. May also provide case and care management or interventions designed to promote health, prevent disease, and address barriers to access to healthcare.
Main tasks
- Advocate for clients or patients to resolve crises.
- Educate clients about end-of-life symptoms and options to assist them in making informed decisions.
- Collaborate with other professionals to evaluate patients' medical or physical condition and to assess client needs.
- Refer patient, client, or family to community resources to assist in recovery from mental or physical illness and to provide access to services such as financial assistance, legal aid, housing, job placement or education.
- Utilize consultation data and social work experience to plan and coordinate client or patient care and rehabilitation, following through to ensure service efficacy.
- Monitor, evaluate, and record client progress according to measurable goals described in treatment and care plan.
Skills
- Social Perceptiveness
- Speaking
- Service Orientation
- Reading Comprehension
- Critical Thinking
- Coordination
Who this career fits
May suit you if
- You get energy from helping other people move forward.
- You enjoy working out why something happens, not just what happened.
- You are prepared for graduate-level study and a long training path.
- You are comfortable relying on social perceptiveness and speaking.
May not suit you if
- You find a full day of dealing with people draining.
- You want to work with your hands for most of the day. Realistic rates 2.0 out of 7 here.
- You want to be working in the field within the next few years.
Interest profile
O*NET rates each occupation from 1 to 7 on six interest types. The code SIC takes the three highest, and Social comes first here.
Preparation
Extensive preparation. Many jobs here need graduate study, and people often spend five years or more building specialist experience.
Most-reported requirement in the O*NET survey: Master's Degree. This reflects what workers reported most often and is not a legal minimum. Licensing rules can differ by state or industry, so confirm what applies where you plan to work.
Also called
- Clinical Social Worker
- Hospice Social Worker
- LMSW (Licensed Master Social Worker)
- Medical Social Worker
- Nephrology Social Worker
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This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.