Actuarial Analyst, Senior

Job Description

Your Role

Join the Actuarial Pay for Value team and help Blue Shield lead the industry in value-based care innovation, setting the standard for how care is paid for. Reporting to the Senior Manager, Actuarial Pay for Value, you will develop the strategies and financial models behind our value-based payment programs, including hospital value models, episode-based specialty care models, and vendor partnerships across a wide range of clinical areas such as orthopedics, maternity, oncology, and behavioral health. Engaged from strategy and design through contracting, implementation, and ongoing operations, you will partner with clinical, network, finance, and operations leaders to turn complex data into actionable recommendations. In this highly visible role, you will work directly with senior leaders to build solutions that advance affordability and quality for Californians.

Responsibilities

Your Work

In this role, you will:

• Understand the core principles and functionality of decision, descriptive and predictive analytic methods including forecasting, statistical and machine learning techniques
• Conduct and develop analysis, assess risk and population risk scores and assignment, develop pricing and trends, assess changes in benefit designs, develop reserves, perform forecasting, analyze provider reimbursement terms and/or evaluate actuarial risk related analysis
• Coordinate, prepare, perform, and audit actuarial analyses to assist in the development of complex actuarial formulations leading to the recommendation of pricing, trending, reserving, provider reimbursement and/or risk assessment strategies
• Perform data exploration using a combination of statistical programming languages (including, but not limited SQL, Python, R) and deploys predictive analytics and machine learning techniques to improve risk prediction, improve reserve, trend and financial forecasting in a manner that is actuarially sound, and enable real-time results and operational efficiencies
• Develop evaluation and financial reporting standards for internal and external reports
• Design innovative value-based payment strategies and arrangements, including hospital value models, shared savings, episode-based models, and global budgets, from concept through contracting
• Build financial models and forecasts that quantify cost, savings, and risk to guide contract terms, pricing, and investment decisions
• Evaluate specialty vendor and clinical program performance, including fee structures, ROI, engagement, and performance guarantees, and recommend whether to expand, renegotiate, or discontinue
• Support implementation and ongoing operations, including attribution, payment and reconciliation methodologies, and performance reporting
• Use AI-enabled tools and automation to streamline analytics, accelerate insights, and improve reporting efficiency
• Present insights and recommendations to senior leaders and partner with them to shape provider payment strategy
• Lead analytical workstreams end to end with minimal supervision and mentor junior actuarial staff

Qualifications

Your Knowledge and Experience

• Requires a bachelor's degree in mathematics, statistics, actuarial science, computer science, or a related field
• Requires 5 years of prior relevant experience delivering pricing, reserving, forecasting, or risk analytics
• Requires hands-on experience working with medical and pharmacy claims, eligibility, and provider reimbursement data
• Requires advanced proficiency in Excel and SQL or a comparable language such as Python or R; experience with cloud-based data platforms such as Databricks or Microsoft Fabric preferred
• Requires strong communication, problem-solving, and project management skills, with the ability to present complex analyses clearly to leadership
• Preferred: Experience developing dashboards, data models, or reporting solutions using tools such as Power BI or Tableau
• Preferred: Experience with value-based care, provider contracting, alternative payment models, or vendor/program evaluation
• Preferred: Attained ASA, Associate of the Society of Actuaries
• Preferred: Attained FSA, Fellow of the Society of Actuaries

Hybrid

This role requires employees to be in-office based on our hybrid workplace model, balancing purposeful in-person collaboration with flexibility. For most teams, this means coming into the office two days each week.

Employees living more than 50 miles from an office location will work with their manager to determine in-office time based on business need.

Our Workplace Model

We believe in fostering a workplace environment that balances purposeful in-person collaboration with flexibility - providing clear expectations while respecting the diverse needs of our workforce. Our workplace model is designed around intentional in-person interaction, collaboration, connection, creativity and flexibility:

• For most teams, this means coming into the office two days per week.
• Employees living more than 50 miles from an office location, out of state employees, and employees in certain member-facing roles should work with their manager to determine in-office time based on business need.
• For employees with medical conditions that may impact their ability to work in-office, we are committed to engaging in an interactive process and providing reasonable accommodations to ensure their work environment is conducive to their success and well-being.

The Company reserves the right to require more presence in the office based on business needs, and requirements are subject to change with periodic reviews.

Physical Requirements:

Office Environment - roles involving part to full time schedule in Office Environment. Based in our physical offices and work from home office/deskwork - Activity level: Sedentary, frequency most of work day.

Please click here for further physical requirement detail.