Contracting Analytics Specialist

Job Description

Join UChicago Medicine as a Contracting Analytics Specialist in the Finance department. This position is primarily a work‑from‑home opportunity with the requirement to come onsite as needed. You may be based outside of the greater Chicagoland area. The Contracting Analytics Specialist is responsible for building and modeling all third‑party payer contract reimbursement terms including but not limited to Managed Care Commercial payers, Government programs (Medicare, IL Medicaid), Medicare Advantage payers and Medicaid MCO payers in UCM’s contract management systems or internally developed models.

This includes interpretation of these analytical models – those currently in place, those proposed by UCM in negotiations with external parties, and those sent to us by external parties for consideration – for all system entities in order to meet UCM long‑term financial goals. The Specialist will serve as a managed care subject‑matter expert for hospital, physician, and other ancillary contract rate and language terms.

The Specialist will run analyses to understand historical trends and future performance of existing and proposed contracts for internal benchmarking and reporting, and will be called upon to run analyses related to changes in reimbursement for future decision‑making, such as opening new facilities, switching sites of care, or introducing new technology or services. The Specialist will also assist the VP of Payer Contracting & Strategy;
Executive Director of Payer Contracting, Financial Analytics & Operations; or any of the Payer Contracting Managers in contract negotiations as requested and applicable.

• Assists Analytics Manager with modeling and analyzing current, proposed, and final contract pricing terms for UCM hospitals, physicians, and ambulatory/ancillary providers to determine revenue and operating margin changes; includes fee‑for‑service financial terms for commercial and governmental payers, ACO models, shared savings/shared risk, capitation, bundled pricing, and percent of premium.
• Assists Analytics Manager with developing robust financial business analytics to determine operational impacts and reporting needs, especially regarding managed care business and the goal of revenue optimization.
• Utilizes contract management system to inform rate analyses and performs regular maintenance and auditing of contract management rate calculations to check for variances to expected contract terms.
• Continues education on ever‑changing reimbursement rules and policy updates for commercial and governmental payers, educates internal stakeholders on reimbursement terms, methodology and impacts as needed, and provides contract rate or language information to other teams across the organization in a formal or ad‑hoc setting.
• Aids in strategic pricing analysis to support payer rate parity and pricing transparency work, including periodic market comparisons and surveillance.
• Works collaboratively to provide committee, EVP, and Board presentation materials on topics related to contract financial terms in support of VP of Payer Contracting & Strategy and CFO.
• Maintains strong attention to detail and organization; communicates effectively both verbally and in writing.
• Interacts effectively with colleagues in a variety of contexts and forums and contributes as a team player.
• Requires advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, particularly Excel and PowerPoint; has strong aptitude for learning additional software or systems as needed, especially finance and revenue‑cycle applications.
• SQL database experience is highly desirable but not required.
• Tableau experience is highly desirable but not required.
• Current operations are supported with NThrive/Fin Thrive as the contract management and modeling tool; experience with this is highly desirable but not required. Familiarity with and aptitude for some form of contract management and/or cost accounting systems for data gathering and model analysis is highly desirable.

• Requires a Bachelor’s degree, preferably in finance or a related field.
• Requires a minimum of three or more years of related health‑care…