Home health care coordinator
- Median pay: $34,911
- % who say their job is stressful: 89.1%
Healthcare coordinators deal with slow motion emergencies on a day-to-day basis, says Kelly Green, a program director for KMG Prestige in Saginaw, Mich.
They help aging clients gain access to vital medical services that they might not be able to find -- or afford -- on their own.
And while the health issues may sound fairly routine, such as a dental problem, those little issues can become life threatening if left untreated.
"If you can't afford a dentist and lose teeth, that can affect nutrition and cause heart trouble," said Green.
Making their job even more difficult: Doctors are increasingly refusing to take Medicare patients.
Often times, a coordinator's pay does not reflect the training required or the pressure they are under. Fortunately, most workers love their jobs, said Green.
"It's very rewarding to find the resources that clients need," she said.
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Methodology: Starting from a database of more than 9,000 jobs, PayScale used data from over 120,000 respondents who rated their jobs for quality of life factors. The 15 were selected based on the national median pay for workers with at least five or seven years' experience and the percent of workers surveyed who said their jobs were "fairly stressful" or "extremely stressful." Only one job per "job family" was included. PayScale conducted the survey between August 2011 and August 2013.
