National Affordability Lead – Optum Health – Remote – West

Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The work you do with our team will directly improve health outcomes by connecting people with the care, pharmacy benefits, data and resources they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by diversity and inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health equity on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together. 

 

Quality at UnitedHealth Group means striving for excellence in everything we do in order to help us achieve our Mission. Simply put, it’s in our DNA and why we’re in business — to help people. Our Mission serves as our why; our Values unite us around how we will achieve it. Because when we follow our Mission and live our Values, we deliver Quality.  

 
The Optum Health (OH) National Affordability Lead will play a critical role in identifying, aligning, accelerating, enabling and managing to the Optum Health Office of Affordability’s goals, agenda and vision.

 

The Lead will work hand in hand with regional leadership to identify and bring insights/opportunity visible both regionally and nationally, accelerate, align and enable cross-functional affordability strategies that result in measurable medical cost savings for the assigned region(s). Managing the cost of care for patients in partnership with both the national and regional leadership will ensure Optum achieves best-in-class clinical outcomes. 

 

Cost of care savings will be achieved and maximized through a variety of methods, including leveraging and collaborating with Clinical, Product, Network, Operations, IT and additional enterprise resources. This role requires working in a highly matrixed environment with a solid bias towards strategic thinking, measurement, action, and delivering results.

 

If you are located in West and has an ability to travel to WA, OR, CA or MTW, you will have the flexibility to work remotely* as you take on some tough challenges. 

 

Primary Responsibilities: 

• Build and foster relationships with national, regional and market leadership 
• Identify and facilitate cross-region strategy/insights/opportunity and idea sharing to 
  • Help patients get the right care at the right time
  • Mitigate adverse trends
  • Reduce unnecessary and ineffective care
  • Optimize provider performance and value 
• Align the Optum Health Office of Affordability’s goals, agenda and vision regionally
• Accelerate affordability initiatives by challenging the status quo and removing barriers
• Enable execution by bringing clarity to complexity and escalating when needed to national leadership 

This includes:

• Being a trusted strategic, collaborative and thought partner in managing and mitigating medical costs
• Driving positive outcomes for patients, providers, and stakeholders
• Identifying, understanding and anticipating specific national/regional/market nuances & representing assigned regional interests driving national performance 
• Structuring and analyzing data in partnership with HCE – identifying expense trends and drivers to form high level conclusions or recommendations
• Maintaining clear lines of communication with all matrix partners to ensure effective identification & implementation of national, regional and local priorities
• Working in partnership with other Optum and UHC stakeholders to ensure regional success through identification and coordination of viable initiatives and programs
• Challenging leadership to consider and accelerate new/different opportunities & implementation strategies
• Influencing, driving change and adoption of programs 
• Working closely with clinical, HCE, IT, finance and additional stakeholders to ensure rigorous, reliable processes for identification, validation, measurement and forecasting of opportunities and results
• Partnering to roadmap and document the affordability pipeline based on strategic and financial assessment
• Converting meeting follow-ups and pipeline initiatives into data-driven action plans
• Enabling execution of strategic action plan while tracking measurable outcomes
• Engaging with initiative owners to align to regional leadership, stakeholders and requirements 
• Managing and facilitating trend, performance, value creation and acceleration 
• Creating, partnering and driving monthly national reporting to aid in C-Suite discussions

 

You’ll be rewarded and recognized for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear direction on what it takes to succeed in your role as well as provide development for other roles you may be interested in. 

Required Qualifications: 

• 5+ years of working experience and knowledge in the health insurance, health care, or related industry
• Experience navigating and working within a cross-functional/matrix capacity including Finance, Healthcare Economics (HCE), Clinical, Care Delivery Organizations, Network, Payment Integrity, and others
• Intermediate or higher level of proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite with the ability to create PowerPoint presentations and create pivot tables for data analysis (Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Teams, etc.)
• Proven solid analytical, financial, project management and problem-solving skills; ability to quickly aggregate and analyze information, draw conclusions and translate into action plans
• Proven excellent verbal and written communication skills; ability to speak clearly and concisely, interpreting and conveying complex information in a manner that others can understand
• Proven written/oral communication skills and relationship building, including engagement with senior leaders and diverse stakeholder groups
• Willing and ability to travel up to 10% for business to a care delivery site in WA, OR, CA or MTW

 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Green Belt, Black Belt, and/or PMP Certification
• Experience with project management tools (ex. Smartsheet, Asana)
• Exposure to Affordability/ medical cost management concepts
• Solid understanding of Optum operations, clinical services, network, products and benefits
• Consulting experience, or similar experience driving change based on analytics

 

*All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group’s Telecommuter Policy 

  

California, or Washington Residents Only: The salary range for this role is $104,700 to $190,400 annually. Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. UnitedHealth Group complies with all minimum wage laws as applicable. In addition to your salary, UnitedHealth Group offers benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with UnitedHealth Group, you’ll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives.

  

Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.

 

At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. We believe everyone–of every race, gender, sexuality, age, location and income–deserves the opportunity to live their healthiest life. Today, however, there are still far too many barriers to good health which are disproportionately experienced by people of color, historically marginalized groups and those with lower incomes. We are committed to mitigating our impact on the environment and enabling and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes — an enterprise priority reflected in our mission.   

 

 

Diversity creates a healthier atmosphere: UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. 

 

UnitedHealth Group is a drug – free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.