RTI International’s Health Practice Area has an opening for a Research Economist in the Division of Health Care Payment and Quality to serve as a task and project leader for implementation, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of innovative health care delivery policies, programs, and models.

As a Research Economist, you will provide cutting-edge analyses that will influence healthcare policy and healthcare system innovation, particularly within the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Using large healthcare datasets, you will design, evaluate, and support policies related to healthcare insurance, payment, and delivery models; managed care; healthcare financing, costs, utilization, and quality; health insurance coverage and access; prescription drugs; and risk and case-mix adjustment through statistical analysis. You will lead analytic projects as an integral part of a team, apply an in-depth understanding of critical health policy issues and methods, contribute to and lead proposals to funding entities, and publish and present on findings for scientific audiences. (see: https://www.rti.org/practice-area/health).

Candidates may choose to work remotely within the United States or from RTI’s offices in Research Triangle Park, NC or Washington, DC.

Please include a cover letter, job market paper, and three reference letters with your application.

Responsibilities

• Lead and/or contribute to quantitative and qualitative research activities on a broad range of health policy and health services research topics.
• Specify and supervise descriptive and statistical analyses of large, complex datasets.
• Succinctly present results for a diverse technical and policy audience.
• Author technical reports, memoranda, articles, documentation, regulations, and contract proposals.
• Design and document analytic data files, including health care claims and enrollment data.
• Ensure high quality and accuracy of work products.
• Develop and manage budgets to achieve goals within available resources.
• Supervise and manage research staff in completing project tasks.
• Communicate and negotiate work plans, timelines, budgets, and results with clients.
• Lead and/or contribute to contract proposals including methodological design, management plans, and project budgets.
• Collaborate with teams of mixed levels of technical skills and experience.
• Develop expertise in several health care policy, research methods, and healthcare data areas.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• PhD or PhD candidate (target defense in 2025) in health services research, health economics, health policy, actuarial science, operations research, finance or related quantitative field; or a Master’s degree in the same fields with at least 6 years of relevant experience.
• Demonstrated experience or coursework with domestic (United States) health policy research.
• Completed coursework and experience with quantitative research.
• Ability to analyze large, complex datasets with appropriate descriptive and multivariate statistical techniques.
• Ability to communicate (both written and verbal) complex ideas and information clearly and precisely to diverse audiences.
• Ability to support multiple projects simultaneously and manage competing deadlines with close attention to detail to ensure high quality work.
• Ability to collaborate effectively as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office 365 Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).
• To qualify, applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States and should not require, now or in the future, sponsorship for employment visa status.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with Medicare or Medicaid programs.
• Experience with alternative payment models in traditional Medicare or within the Medicare Advantage program.
• Experience with and skills in quantitative, financial, actuarial, and statistical analysis.
• Experience with large healthcare datasets, especially Medicare or Medicaid claims and administrative data.
• Experience in project, task, timeline, and budget management.
• Ability to analyze quantitative data with R, Python, SAS, SPSS, and/or Stata.
• Experience with open-source programming, specifically R and/or Python.

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: No requirements