Healthcare Data Analyst Job Description
A healthcare data analyst job description template, the domain vocabulary that gates the role, and the ATS keywords hiring teams screen against.
Healthcare data analyst roles are unusual in that the technical bar is often lower than the domain bar. The SQL is rarely exotic. What separates candidates is whether they know what a claim is, why an encounter and a visit are not the same row, and what happens to an analysis when a patient's coverage changes mid-year.
That is good news for analysts trying to move into the field, and it is worth being deliberate about. Postings that read as impenetrable usually turn out to want ordinary analytical work described in unfamiliar vocabulary. Learning to read a claims schema is a smaller job than learning a new language.
The regulatory dimension is real but frequently overstated in postings. Handling protected health information imposes genuine constraints on where data lives and who sees it. It does not usually change the analysis itself, and most employers train on their own compliance requirements rather than expecting you to arrive knowing them.
Calderwick · Chicago, IL
Full-time · On-site
$82,000 – $105,000
About the role
Calderwick is hiring a Healthcare Data Analyst to support our population health and quality reporting teams. You will work with claims, clinical and enrolment data to answer questions about cost, utilisation and care quality across roughly 180,000 covered lives.
The role sits between the clinical teams who ask the questions and the data engineering team who own the warehouse. You will spend more time establishing what a question actually means than writing the query that answers it, and the analysts who do well here treat that as the interesting part.
What you'll do
- Build and maintain SQL queries and reports against claims, clinical and enrolment data.
- Produce quality measure reporting, including HEDIS measures, on a recurring calendar.
- Partner with clinical stakeholders to turn a vague question into a specification you can answer.
- Build dashboards in Tableau or Power BI that clinicians will actually open a second time.
- Investigate data quality problems and document what you found, including when the answer is unwelcome.
- Support risk adjustment and utilisation analyses for contract and budget planning.
- Handle protected health information in line with HIPAA and our internal data governance policies.
What we're looking for
- Two or more years in an analytical role, with at least one year working with healthcare data.
- Strong SQL — joins across large tables, window functions, and the judgement to know when a result is wrong.
- Experience with a business intelligence tool such as Tableau, Power BI or Looker.
- Familiarity with healthcare claims structure: ICD-10 and CPT coding, and the shape of a claims table.
- Working understanding of HIPAA obligations as they apply to analytical work.
- Clear written communication — much of the output is a memo, not a chart.
Nice to have
- Experience with HEDIS or other regulated quality measure reporting.
- Exposure to risk adjustment models such as HCC.
- Python or R for analyses that outgrow SQL.
- Experience with electronic health record data, particularly Epic Clarity or Cerner.
- A clinical or public health background, formal or otherwise.
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision coverage with low-deductible options.
- 403(b) retirement plan with a 5% employer contribution.
- Tuition assistance for job-relevant coursework, up to $5,250 per year.
- Eighteen days of paid time off plus company holidays.
Salary range
As posted for this sample role. Real pay varies by employer, location and experience.
$82,000–$105,000/ yr
ATS keywords for this role
The applicant tracking system (ATS) — the recruiting software a hiring team searches and filters applicants with — will screen for these. Weight shows how central each one is to this specific posting.
Required and central (6)
Important (8)
Mentioned in passing (5)
Frequently asked questions
Can I move into healthcare analytics from another industry?
Yes, and it is a common path. The transferable half is the analytical technique; the half you have to learn is the domain — claims structure, coding systems, and the regulatory constraints. Employers hiring at the two-to-three-year mark frequently accept strong general analysts and train the domain, particularly for roles supporting operations rather than clinical research.
Do I need a clinical background?
No. It helps for roles embedded with clinical teams, and it is close to required for clinical informatics positions, but most healthcare data analyst roles are filled by people from analytics, statistics or economics backgrounds.
What does HIPAA actually require of an analyst day to day?
Mostly it constrains where data can live and who can see it: working inside approved systems rather than pulling extracts to a laptop, using the minimum data necessary for the question, and following your employer's rules on de-identification before anything is shared. Employers train on their own implementation, so arriving without specifics is normal.
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