Special Investigations Analyst, Senior

Your Role

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) is responsible for detecting, investigating, and preventing healthcare fraud, waste, and abuse involving providers, facilities, members, and brokers across all lines of business, and for coordinating with law enforcement and regulatory agencies. The Special Investigations Analyst, Senior will report to the Senior Manager, Special Investigations Unit. In this role you serve as the front of the SIU detection pipeline, independently identifying suspect providers and emerging fraud schemes through advanced data mining and claims analysis.

You will quantify financial exposure, develop well-supported lead packages, and drive the analysis that enables prepayment review placement, investigation, and payment containment. Your work directly protects members and reduces the cost of healthcare by stopping improper payments before they are made. This role requires travel to provider locations to conduct onsite provider audits, as needed.

Your Work

In this role, you will:

• Lead development of complex fraud leads within the Individual & Family Plan (IFP) line of business, linking and analyzing multiple datasets to identify underlying schemes, trends, and financial exposure, with focus on substance use disorder and behavioral health provider fraud
• Build and maintain detection queries, analytic models, and repeatable workflows that identify suspect providers, aberrant billing patterns, and rapid claim-volume escalation
• Quantify provider-level financial exposure and produce high quality, audit ready lead and case packages that support SIU prioritization and investigative decision making
• Apply judgment to resolve ambiguous analytic problems and deliver well supported lead recommendations, including prepayment review placement
• Communicate complex analytic findings and recurring program reporting clearly to SIU leadership and cross-functional stakeholders with limited guidance
• Provide guidance, coaching, and quality review for other analysts on complex analyses and documentation standards
• Partner with investigators, prepayment review staff, SIU leadership, Medical Directors, and internal business units to advance cases toward disposition
• Ensure all data gathering, analysis, and documentation comply with applicable state and federal regulations and Blue Shield privacy and information security requirements
• Travel to provider locations to conduct onsite audits
• Other duties as assigned

Your Knowledge and Experience

• Requires a bachelor's degree or High School Diploma/GED and 4 years of additional relevant experience in lieu of a degree

• Requires 5 years of prior relevant experience in healthcare fraud analytics, claims analysis, payment integrity, audit, or a related investigative or analytical field

• Requires advanced knowledge of health insurance reimbursement methodologies, coding frameworks (CPT, HCPCS, ICD-10, revenue codes), and government program requirements; coding certification such as CPC preferred

• Requires proven ability to apply independent analytic judgment to complex, ambiguous scenarios and quantify financial exposure or relevant metrics

• Requires advanced ability to read, interpret, and synthesize medical documentation without routine assistance

• Requires strong written, verbal, and presentation skills with limited guidance, including the ability to produce defensible documentation for internal, regulatory, and law enforcement audiences

• Requires proficient use of advanced analytic tools, queries, and visualization techniques used for fraud detection; SQL, Excel, and claims platforms such as Facets

• Experience with fraud detection platforms such as HCFS preferred

• Knowledge of behavioral health and other fraud schemes preferred
  

Hybrid

This role requires employees to be in-office based on our hybrid workplace model, balancing purposeful in-person collaboration with flexibility. For most teams, this means coming into the office two days each week.

Employees living more than 50 miles from an office location will work with their manager to determine in-office time based on business need.

ABOUT THE TEAM
About Blue Shield of California

As of January 2025, Blue Shield of California became a subsidiary of Ascendiun. Ascendiun is a nonprofit corporate entity that is the parent to a family of organizations including Blue Shield of California and its subsidiary, Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan; Altais, a clinical services company; and Stellarus, a company designed to scale healthcare solutions. Together, these organizations are referred to as the Ascendiun Family of Companies.

At Blue Shield of California, our mission is to create a healthcare system worthy of our family and friends and sustainably affordable. We are transforming health care in a way that genuinely serves our nonprofit mission by lowering costs, improving quality, and enhancing the member and physician experience.

To achieve our mission, we foster an environment where all employees can thrive and contribute fully to address the needs of the various communities we serve. We are committed to creating and maintaining a supportive workplace that upholds our values and advances our goals.

Blue Shield is a U.S. News Best Company to work for, a Deloitte U.S. Best Managed Company and a Top 100 Inspiring Workplace. We were recognized by Fair360 as a Top Regional Company, and one of the 50 most community-minded companies in the United States by Points of Light. Here at Blue Shield, we strive to make a positive change across our industry and communities – join us!

Our Values:

• Honest. We hold ourselves to the highest ethical and integrity standards. We build trust by doing what we say we're going to do and by acknowledging and correcting where we fall short.
• Human. We strive to listen and communicate effectively, showing empathy by understanding others' perspectives.
• Courageous. We stand up for what we believe in and are committed to the hard work necessary to achieve our ambitious goals.

Physical Requirements:

Office Environment - roles involving part to full time schedule in Office Environment. Based in our physical offices and work from home office/deskwork - Activity level: Sedentary, frequency most of work day.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

External hires must pass a background check/drug screen. Qualified applicants with arrest records and/or conviction records will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with Federal, State and local laws, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status or disability status and any other classification protected by Federal, State and local laws.