Senior Payer Contract Analyst — Healthcare Analytics

Neolytix•Chicago, IL

4d•Onsite

About The Position

Neolytix is a healthcare managed services organization serving over 270 provider organizations nationwide. Our Payer Analytics practice assists physician groups, MSOs, and multi-site healthcare organizations in understanding their actual reimbursement from payers, benchmarking these rates against the market, and securing better contracts. We are seeking a Senior Payer Contract Analyst in Chicago to collaborate directly with our Payer Contract Analytics practice lead. In this role, you will analyze payer fee schedules and claims data, benchmark contracted rates against Transparency in Coverage (TiC) market data and Medicare, develop models and dashboards to quantify underpayment and negotiation opportunities, and contribute to client-ready deliverables for healthcare CFOs to inform contract decisions. This is an analyst-consultant position, not a reporting role, as your work will be presented to clients and used in payer negotiations. You will work in-office alongside senior leadership, gaining direct insight into payer contracting strategy from experienced practitioners. As the practice grows, you will play a role in codifying the methodology and training future analysts.

Requirements

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 a 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 proficiency: joins, aggregation, window functions, and comfort with multi-million-row claims or rates tables. Experience designing table structures (DDL) and loading large datasets into a relational database.
Python for data analysis (pandas or equivalent).
Power BI experience: personally built and published dashboards, including DAX measures.
Advanced Excel modeling skills.
Ability to work on-site in Chicago.
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.

Nice To Haves

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 experience beyond the database itself: Azure Data Factory, blob storage, or automated data refresh pipelines.

Responsibilities

Analyze payer contracts and fee schedules, modeling 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 for client and negotiation team use.
Utilize AI tools (LLMs, AI-assisted analysis workflows) as an integral part of the analytical toolkit.
Produce client-ready deliverables, including findings, exhibits, and negotiation support materials for CFOs and VPs of Managed Care.
Document methodology, business rules, and templates to facilitate practice scalability.