Healthcare vs. Health Care – What’s the Difference?

Healthcare vs. Health Care – What’s the Difference?

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I’ll be the first to admit it – I’m a bit of a grammar guru, and I hate when I’m wrong. I cringe when people use the incorrect form of there or their, your and you’re, poor and pour. I’m completely mortified if I find that I’ve made this type of mistake in my own writing. With that said, something that has bothered me since I started writing about healthcare nearly three years ago is the question of healthcare vs. health care. That little space in the word and the fact that the words seem to be used interchangeably across the industry drives me insane. Is there a difference in the definition or form of these two words, or is healthcare vs. health care interchangeable? Personally, I write it as one word – but WHAT IF I’M WRONG? Does anyone else sit around asking stupid questions like this, or is it just me? I was pondering on this today when I finally decided to take it to the trusty Google. I am happy to find that many people are actually wondering about healthcare vs. health care too. Maybe it’s not a stupid question after all.

So, let’s talk grammar.

What’s the Deal with Healthcare vs. Health Care?

Healthcare vs. health care – what industry do you work for? Was this always an issue, or where along the line did we get lazy and just decide to make it one word? After all, we don’t ever write “acutecare” or “medicalcare.” We include a space when we write those similar terms… at least for now, we do. We also have publications, such as Modern Healthcare, which doesn’t include the space. Modern Healthcare must be right, right? After reading many different websites, from grammarist.com to thedoctorweighsin.com, I’ve found that in the United States there really is no clear direction on this. The most solid assumption, though, is that the words should not be used interchangeably because they don’t necessarily mean the same thing. It turns out that technically, I’ve been writing it wrong.

healthcare vs health care

Before we break this grammar lesson down in detail, here’s an example of a sentence that uses both words as they are supposed to be written.

You work in the healthcare industry, and your job is to provide health care to your patients.   

Alright, so here we go. We’ll start with health care.

Health Care is a noun.

Health care is the action of providers and patients in maintaining their health. For example:

Physicians are responsible for managing all aspects of their patients’ health care.

Access to health care for certain demographics is very limited in the United States.

Healthcare is a noun or adjective.

Healthcare refers to the actual system or industry, and it can be a noun or an adjective.

First, here’s an example of it used as a noun:

I write about healthcare for a job board website.    

Second, here’s an example of it used as an adjective:

The healthcare industry is the largest employer in the country.

And to really throw a loop into it, there are also times when you should write it in the hyphenated adjectival form, as health-care.

Health-care services continue to rise in cost, causing many Americans to be unable to afford treatment.

Well that’s all easy to remember, right? Right. Now, the real clincher, in my opinion, is that it’s really only this confusing for us here in the United States. I’m feeling kind of like this kitten:

healthcare vs. health careOf course, we would have three separate ways of writing the same word. The British, on the other hand, have settled the debate on healthcare vs. health care and are now only using it as one word, without the space. In our country, we’re still switching back and forth between the forms depending on what English grammar style we are using. For example, the Associated Press, or AP style, is still using health care, while many government websites are using healthcare vs. health care as we described above, alternating it depending on if they’re describing the industry itself or the act of providing care.

Now that we’ve all had our grammar lesson for the day, we can get back to our healthcare jobs. Oh, and if you need to find one of those, check out our physician job listings!

Author: Locum Jobs Online

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4 Comments

  1. This lesson was quite needed due to writing an APA report for college every week studying for an Allied health management degree. I gave health care as a CMA at allied healthcare offices in the past still was not sure how to use the word properly. Thank you!

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  2. I suggest using “health care” when it is used as a noun and use “healthcare” when it is an adjective like in “healthcare services.”

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  3. Thanks for the clarification.

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  4. Suoer helpful!!

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