Vice President, Population Health (West Region)

UnitedHealth Group•Boston, MA

11h

About The Position

For those who want to invent the future of health care, here's your opportunity. We're going beyond basic care to health programs integrated across the entire continuum of care. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together. The VP, Operations - Population Health (West Region) is the senior operational leader and key dyad partner to the CMO, Population Health for Optum Health West. This role is accountable for building and scaling the region’s market-facing medical management operating model across West markets - creating the management system, performance cadence, governance, and cross-market routines that improve the core drivers of medical expense performance. This leader works through influence across markets, regional leaders, and enterprise partners to help markets manage the business more effectively every day. The VP ensures the region has a disciplined operating rhythm focused on leading and lagging indicators that drive MedEx performance, including avoidable inpatient utilization, avoidable ED use, post-acute utilization, pharmacy spend, care management reliability, high-risk patient groups, and patient access. In partnership with the CMO, Population Health, this leader translates performance signals into action by helping markets identify the highest-value opportunities, establish clear accountability, and execute against measurable improvement plans. Success in the role requires solid change leadership, operating discipline, and the ability to mobilize leaders in a matrixed environment around a common performance model. This role is central to creating a durable, market-based medical management capability that improves day-to-day execution while also generating ideas and opportunities for the affordability agenda.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in health system, risk bearing medical group, care delivery operations, or value-based operations leadership
Experience leading cross-functional clinical and operational teams in a complex matrix environment
Demonstrated success in driving medical expense, quality, or risk improvement at scale
Demonstrated solid operating discipline, change leadership, and ability to influence across a highly matrixed organization

Nice To Haves

Experience in population health operations within large multi market organizations
Familiarity with value based care economics and affordability levers
Demonstrated solid change management capability; able to standardize and scale capabilities across markets

Responsibilities

Lead operational execution of the West market-facing medical management operating model across all West markets
Serve in dyad partnership with the CMO, Population Health (West) to translate strategy into measurable operating plans, market priorities, and execution routines
Drive a consistent operating rhythm, performance monitoring, and intervention model to improve medical expense performance across markets
Drive implementation of shared best practices, standard work, and playbooks across markets to reduce unwarranted variation in medical expense performance
Partner with the CMO, Population Health to design, implement, and continuously improve the West’s market-facing medical management operating model
Establish the management cadence, governance, decision forums, escalation paths, and accountability model needed to manage MedEx performance consistently across markets
Stand up and lead a cross-regional performance forum focused on leading and lagging indicators of medical expense performance
Lead monthly market and regional deep dives to identify root causes, prioritize actions, assign accountability, and monitor follow-through
Serve as the operational counterbalance to the clinical leadership spine (market CMOs + Assoc. CMO Pop Health) and the succession pipeline for future West leadership
Coordinate with adjacent leaders in affordability, risk, quality, safety, and behavioral health as the operating model expands over time. Coordinate with VBC leaders (e.g., Colin Toney) and related medical management leaders (e.g., Neil Parikh) where population health intersects with VBC and utilization performance
Support integration of newly transferred national CE team members focused on medical management execution
Clarify accountabilities between market teams and shared-service partners to improve execution and reduce duplication or confusion
Coordinate with adjacent leaders on the West CMO team and across the organization in in affordability, value-based care, risk, quality, safety, behavioral health, and other medical management functions as the operating model expands over time
Support role clarity, operating alignment, and effective integration across regional and enterprise teams contributing to medical management performance
Partner with market leaders to improve core drivers of medical expense, including inpatient utilization, avoidable ED utilization, post-acute utilization and spend, pharmacy trends, care management performance, and patient access
Help markets translate data into focused action plans with clear owners, milestones, and measurable outcomes
Reduce unwarranted variation across markets by identifying where standard work, shared playbooks, or tighter management routines are needed
Build market capability to manage the business proactively and consistently through durable operating routines, not just one-time initiatives
Identify and resolve operational barriers impacting performance across diverse West markets and geographies
Facilitate cross-market learning to surface best practices and accelerate adoption of effective interventions
Support a disciplined culture of performance management, accountability, and continuous improvement across the region
In partnership with finance, analytics, and clinical leaders, define and maintain a standardized set of MedEx metrics and leading indicators across markets
Ensure routine performance reviews connect operational metrics to financial outcomes and total cost of care trends
Use dashboards and performance reviews to support exception-based management, root-cause analysis, and rapid course correction
Create transparency across regions and leaders so performance issues, variation, and opportunities are visible and actionable