Associate Director Clinical Annotation - Remote

Optum Insight is improving the flow of health data and information to create a more connected system. We remove friction and drive alignment between care providers and payers, and ultimately consumers. Our deep expertise in the industry and innovative technology empower us to help organizations reduce costs while improving risk management, quality and revenue growth. Ready to help us deliver results that improve lives? Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

The Associate Director - Clinical Annotation provides clinical and operational leadership for enterprise level clinical annotation initiatives that support AI enabled utilization management solutions. This role is accountable for planning, executing, and completing annotation projects on time and at scale, ensuring clinical accuracy, audit readiness, and alignment with utilization management guidelines.

The Associate Director oversees annotation workflows, resolves clinical discrepancies arising from dual review processes, and ensures finalized annotations serve as the authoritative clinical source of truth for AI model training and validation. This role also leads capacity planning and volume responsiveness, proactively aligning staffing and workflows to changing business demands while positioning annotation operations for growth into additional clinical domains.

You'll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely * from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Clinical Annotation Leadership & Oversight
  • Provide clinical oversight and final decision authority for annotation discrepancies identified through dual review workflows
  • Ensure all finalized annotations align with correct interpretation of utilization management guidelines, clinical criteria, and documentation standards
  • Document clinical rationale for annotation decisions to support audit, compliance, and defensibility
  • Submit finalized records and ensure accurate case status updates within proprietary platforms
• Project Management & Execution
  • Own end to end project management for annotation initiatives, including scope definition, work planning, milestone tracking, and on time delivery
  • Develop and maintain project plans that clearly define timelines, dependencies, deliverables, and completion dates
  • Track progress against milestones and proactively manage risks, delays, or resource constraints to ensure project completion
  • Provide regular status reporting on progress, throughput, accuracy, and timeline adherence to stakeholders
• Operational Management, Capacity Planning & Volume Responsiveness
  • Manage daily annotation operations to balance throughput, accuracy, and clinical quality
  • Forecast annotation volumes and perform capacity planning to align annotator staffing with anticipated and real time demand
  • Partner with the Digital Prior Authorization team to anticipate volume fluctuations and rapidly adjust staffing, prioritization, and workflows
  • Ensure operational readiness during peak demand periods and critical timelines
• Quality Assurance & Continuous Improvement
  • Provide structured feedback and guidance to annotators to improve accuracy, consistency, and guideline interpretation
  • Partner with clinical auditors to support quality audits, inter rater reliability efforts, and continuous improvement initiatives
  • Monitor trends in annotation discrepancies and drive process improvements to reduce error rates over time
• Cross Functional Collaboration
  • Collaborate closely with Product and Data Science teams to maintain alignment on clinical standards, annotation requirements, project timelines, and model readiness needs
  • Serve as a clinical subject matter expert supporting AI enabled workflows and responsible AI development
  • Translate clinical requirements into operationally scalable annotation practices
• Strategic Growth & Future Planning
  • Contribute to strategy for expanding annotation capabilities into additional clinical domains, products, or use cases
  • Identify opportunities to improve scalability, efficiency, and clinical coverage as organizational needs evolve
  • Support development of sustainable annotation models that enable future growth while maintaining clinical rigor

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:

• Active clinical licensure with advanced clinical experience (RN, NP, or equivalent)
• 3+ years of med/surg and/or critical care experience
• 2+ years of experience in clinical operations leadership
• Experience in quality assurance and audit
• Demonstrated experience interpreting and applying clinical criteria sets (e.g., InterQual®, MCG®)
• Solid knowledge of clinical documentation and coding standards
• Solid background in utilization management, including prior authorization and concurrent review
• Demonstrated project management skills, including planning, organization, timeline tracking, and delivery accountability
• Demonstrated ability to make independent, clinically sound decisions in complex or ambiguous scenarios
• Demonstrated solid analytical skills, attention to detail, and clear, professional communication

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience supporting AI driven or technology enabled clinical workflows
• Experience scaling clinical operations or leading workflows through periods of growth or increasing complexity
• Familiarity with AI model development, validation, or clinical data annotation processes

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

Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer 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 us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $112,700 to $193,200 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.

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.

UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer under applicable law and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal laws, rules, or regulations.

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