Contract Negotiator Job Descriptions, Average Salary, Interview Questions

We bring together the best and brightest minds in the country, and we want to make sure they reach their full potential! That’s why we’re currently searching for a candidate that strives to make sure that everyone is being treated fairly. We have an opening for a contract negotiator on our team. The ideal candidate will be well-versed in state and federal laws and have an adept understanding of contract terms. This individual will interpret contract requirements, anticipate changes required, and help administrate implementation. We’re looking for amazing negotiators to make sure all parties are meeting legal obligations. If you have a desire to administer fairness and foster trust within our organization, and you’ve got excellent negotiation skills, we’d love to hear from you!

• Typical duties and responsibilities

• Reviewing and interpreting all contract requirements
• Forecasting and anticipating changes from contract terms
• Understand and articulate contract terms to all relevant parties
• Participate in proposal preparation, contract negotiation, administration, and fulfillment in accordance with all company policy, and local, state, and federal laws
• Advise and provide consultation for all parties and collaborative departments
• Provide mediation for discussions and remedial actions
• Ability to develop solutions for a wide variety of problems ranging from mundane to highly complex

Education and experience

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, business management, or a related field
• 2 years experience in contract development, management, or administration, human resources, or related field

Required skills and qualifications

• Excellent verbal and written communication
• Knowledge of policies, processes, general practices, and laws as they pertain to government contracts
• Demonstrable negotiating skills
• Ability to develop consensus and influence resolution
• Extensive knowledge of negotiations as they regard to contracting and subcontracting
• Work well independently and in a team environment
• Experience with the Microsoft Suite (Word, Excel, Powerpoint)
• Ability to communicate issues to a wide range of audiences

Preferred qualifications

• 5 years experience in a negotiations position

Job summary

Our clinical operations activities are growing rapidly, and we are currently seeking individuals with paralegal experience to join our Clinical Operations team as a full-time Contract Specialist. This role plays a key role in the study start-up and clinical trial management processes at ABC Company. The Contract Specialist will play a key role in advancing the start-up of our projects. If you want an exciting career where you use your previous expertise and can develop and grow your career even further, then this is the opportunity for you. This position has office-based openings in both Cincinnati, OH and Dallas, TX.

Responsibilities

• Is responsible for preparing, negotiating, tracking and finalizing the Confidentiality Agreements (CDA), Clinical Trial Agreements (CTA), Budgets, and Letters of Indemnification (LOI)
• Involved in preparing, negotiating, and tracking any possible amendments to the Clinical Trial Agreement (CTA) and Budget
• Manages all required contractual agreements with investigator sites. This includes distribution, negotiation of budget and language, tracking, and finalization
• Proactively identifies site contract related risks and potential roadblocks
• Prepares contract approval timelines with investigators and leads efforts to obtain contract approval to meet study deliverables
• Maintains consistent communication with project team and sites regarding status of all contractual requirements
• Maintains tracking regarding site contracts and provides regular updates as agreed by the study team to the project team and client regarding status and efforts to ensure timelines are maintained
• Participates in corporate initiatives and actions that ensure the continued success of the company

Qualifications

• Bachelors degree required
• Ability to work with internal and external customers/vendors to meet project-specific goals
• Ability to manage high volume work and meet rigorous deadlines
• Flexibility to strategically manage negotiations with minimal oversight
• Ability to interact with site, clients, and other functional areas as secondary project contact for contracting issues and questions
• Ability to manage time and project requirements based on study deliverables

Responsible for working as liaison between Providers and organization. Identify, select, and monitor providers and draft and negotiate final contracts. Ensures optimal language is inserted into each agreement that will protect ABC Company, its patients and customers. May create processes and procedures to ensure overall quality of provider services. Facilitate development of relationships with providers, maintain relationships for long-term contracts, and mediate performance and scorecard disputes.

General duties & responsibilities

• Draw up short term and long term Contracting Strategy for the development and improvement of ABC Company’s provider network
• Works independently and as part of a team on contract negotiations, renegotiations, contract preparation, provider relations, and recruitment
• Reduce cost of goods sold through contract negotiations and renegotiations of existing vendor contracts
• Ensure quality components of service delivery and patient/carrier satisfaction with services provided
• Initially establishes relationships with providers and prepares handoff to account management team
• Participate in process for continuous credentialing and quality monitoring of assigned accounts
• Monitors state fee schedules by working closely with ABC Company’s Government Affairs Department to ensure vendor compliance
• Works with team to identify margin opportunities by performing analysis on out of network utilization and using data to identify network development opportunities
• Performs ad hoc negotiations with out of network vendors and strategically recruits new vendors based on feedback from Operations and Sales
• Works closely with Internal Audit and Compliance (IAC) department to ensure vendor compliance with contracts as well as ABC Company’s billing and other protocols
• Identifies potential vendors for recruitment into the ABC Company network
• Identifies white space and targets vendors in those areas for inclusion in the ABC Company network
• Negotiates all new and existing contracts
• Performs contract and cost analysis
• Manages contract process including distributing and receiving contracts
• Acquires credentialing applications at initial contracting
• Acquires liability and licensure on each provider at initial contracting

Educational requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or the equivalent combination of education, training, or work experience

General knowledge, skills & abilities

• Good understanding of ABC Company’s products and services
• General knowledge of the workers’ compensation industry
• Requires expert negotiation and communication skills, both written and verbal
• Knowledge of Provider Relations
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills to technical and non-technical audiences of various levels in the organization (e.g. executive, management, individual contributors)
• Excellent problem solving, team and time management skills managing multiple deadlines for self and others
• Proficiency in making projections of future expenses based on analysis of cost effectiveness of past expenditures
• Proficiency to operate independently on work that is often confidential in nature

Position purpose

• Recruit and develop network for a region and set of providers
• Lead assigned recruitments (i.e., physician, hospital and ancillary) and ensure they result in complete and accurate standard contracts that meet objectives
• Facilitate and oversee to the provider set-up and contract configuration to ensure accurate claims adjudication
• Initiate contact and identify potential providers by geographic and specialty needs and update database
• Coordinate with internal departments and contracted providers to implement and maintain contract compliance

Education/experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Healthcare Administration, Business Administration, Finance, related field or equivalent experience
• 0-2 years of contracting, contract analysis, provider relations, or provider experience in a hospital, physician’s office, or group setting
• Familiarity with State and/or Federal health care programs preferred (Medicaid, Medicare)