Job Title: Senior Payer Contract Analyst - Healthcare Analytics
Location: Loop, Chicago, IL - on-site (this is not a remote role)
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: $95,000 - $110,000 per year base, plus performance bonus.
Posted range per Illinois pay transparency requirements; target for a strong 3-5 year profile is approximately $100,000.
We are hiring a Senior Payer Contract Analyst in Chicago to work directly with our Payer Contract Analytics practice lead. You will analyze payer fee schedules and claims data, benchmark contracted rates against Transparency in Coverage (TiC) market data and Medicare, build the models and dashboards that quantify underpayment and negotiation opportunity, and help produce client-ready deliverables that healthcare CFOs use to make contract decisions.
This is an analyst-consultant seat, not a reporting seat. Your work goes in front of clients and into payer negotiations. You will work in-office alongside senior leadership and learn payer contracting strategy directly from practitioners - and as the practice scales, you will help codify the methodology and train the analysts who come after you.
What you will do
- Analyze payer contracts and fee schedules: model reimbursement terms (% of Medicare, fixed fee schedules, case rates, carve-outs) across commercial and government payers.
- Benchmark contracted rates against Transparency in Coverage machine-readable files, Medicare fee schedules, and regional market data to quantify rate gaps and revenue opportunity.
- Analyze claims data (837/835, payment and remittance data) to validate payment accuracy against contract terms and identify underpayments and variances.
- Build and maintain analytical datasets in SQL and Python (pandas) from large, messy raw sources.
- Own the data foundation: design table structures and schemas in Azure SQL, and load, validate, and refresh data from raw sources - payer fee schedules, TiC extracts, claims files - into the analytical environment.
- Design and publish Power BI dashboards and models used by clients and by our negotiation team.
- Use AI tools (LLMs, AI-assisted analysis workflows) as a working part of your analytical toolkit - we expect fluency, not curiosity.
- Produce client-ready deliverables: findings, exhibits, and negotiation support materials for CFOs and VPs of Managed Care.
- Document methodology, business rules, and templates so the practice can scale beyond you.
Must have (please do not apply if you do not meet these)
- 3-5 years of hands-on analytics experience in US healthcare, in at least one of: payer contracting / managed care analytics, reimbursement or payment integrity analytics, revenue cycle (RCM) analytics, payer network analytics, or healthcare consulting with payer/provider financial focus.
- Working knowledge of US reimbursement mechanics: CPT/HCPCS coding, fee schedules, allowed vs. billed vs. paid amounts, Medicare rates as a benchmark.
- SQL: joins, aggregation, window functions, and comfort with multi-million-row claims or rates tables. You have personally designed table structures (DDL) and loaded large datasets into a relational database - not just queried tables others built. Azure SQL experience strongly preferred.
- Python for data analysis (pandas or equivalent).
- Power BI: you have personally built and published dashboards, including DAX measures.
- Able to work on-site in Chicago and authorized to work in the United States at the time of hire.
Each of these requirements is verified through screening questions and a hands-on case study - please apply only if you meet them.
Strong pluses
- Direct experience with Transparency in Coverage (TiC) or hospital price transparency data.
- Experience at a health plan (network/contracting analytics), a healthcare consulting firm, an RCM company, or a health system managed care department.
- Experience presenting analysis to clients or executives.
- Azure data ecosystem beyond the database itself: Azure Data Factory, blob storage, or automated data refresh pipelines.
What this role is not
- Not a BI developer or report-runner seat. Not an EHR/Epic reporting analyst seat. Not a healthcare IT / business systems analyst seat. If your experience is writing requirements, running canned reports, or administering systems rather than doing the analysis yourself, this is not the right role.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance; 401(k); paid time off and holidays.
