Policy and Strategy Specialist at Activate Care in Boston, MA

About Activate Care:

At Activate Care, we’re on a mission to improve health equity and drive improved health outcomes across the country. Our Community Care Record platform, Care Link, enables healthcare and community organizations to coordinate care for populations challenged with health-related social needs (HRSN). Path Assist is our tech-enabled Community Health Worker program for addressing HRSN utilizing an evidence-based, structured intervention. Our goal is simple: address individuals’ unmet HRSNs, increase health confidence, improve self-efficacy, and reduce inappropriate healthcare spend.

Role Overview:

The Policy and Market Strategy Specialist supports Activate Care’s strategic growth by combining Medicaid and Medicare policy expertise with policy-informed market intelligence, public-sector opportunity analysis, and strategic project coordination. This role monitors federal and state policy, waiver activity, public funding, procurement, payer priorities, and emerging Medicaid/Medicare market developments and translates them into concise briefs, recommendations, opportunity pipelines, and project plans.

The Policy and Market Strategy Specialist helps determine where Activate Care’s products, care models, workforce capabilities, and technology solutions align with policy opportunities, regulatory feasibility, public-sector funding, and market demand. This role is seen as a respected, strategic enabler, translating policy changes into actionable insights to advance equitable access to care, to ensure that Activate Care proactively adapts to changing policy and regulatory environments.

Responsibilities:

Policy, Regulatory, and Market Strategy

• Support strategic planning by advising on state and federal health insurance markets and regulations, including:
  • State Medicaid plans and Medicaid managed care
  • Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and D-SNP plans
  • State waivers, pilots, and innovative care models
  • Value-based payment and risk-based contracting models
  • Quality measures for value-based purchasing
• Analyze policy changes and assess implications for Activate Care’s growth strategy, care models, proposals, products, and client opportunities.
• Prepare product-market fit analyses (e.g., landscape & trend analyses, policy briefs, regulatory summaries, funding authority) for new markets, contracted projects, and strategic planning.
• Support Community Needs Assessments/Community Health Assessment and Equity projects by helping interpret Medicaid policy, state flexibility, coverage rules, local programs, and existing community assets.
• Help determine what is feasible for health plans, providers, state agencies, and community partners to implement within existing policy, benefit, funding, and regulatory structures.

Public-Sector Opportunity Intelligence and Rapid Response

• Maintain a structured opportunity pipeline for time-sensitive public-sector opportunities, including RFPs/RFIs, state funding opportunities, waiver activity, Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) opportunities, and emerging Medicaid or Medicare initiatives.
• Develop and maintain rapid-response systems for scanning state websites, procurement portals, policy updates, public notices, and agency communications for opportunities aligned with Activate Care’s strategy.
• Conduct policy-informed market research on Medicaid, Medicare, D-SNP, rural health, behavioral health, maternal health, reentry, social care, value-based care, and at-risk provider trends.
• Prepare concise opportunity briefs that synthesize policy context, funding source, eligibility requirements, customer or agency need, population impact, strategic fit, feasibility, and recommended next steps.
• Support go/no-go recommendations by assessing policy feasibility, operational implications, public-sector funding alignment, and fit with Activate Care’s capabilities and strategy.

RHTP and Public Funding Coordination

• Coordinate RHTP opportunities and related state or federal funding initiatives.
• Serve as project manager for selected rural health and public funding workstreams, including timelines, deliverables, internal contributors, decision points, and leadership updates.
• Support development of concept summaries, proposal inputs, partner briefs, and executive recommendations related to rural health transformation and other public funding opportunities.
• Coordinate with appropriate functional teams (e.g., Sales/Growth, Marketing, Product, Solutions, Finance, Operations, Technology, Strategy) to determine whether opportunities should advance into proposal development, care model development, partnership exploration, or archive.

New Concept Incubator and Strategic Initiative Support

• Facilitate the use of a New Concept Incubator process for proposed products/solutions, including intake, research, documentation, and decision-support process in partnership with functional teams and stakeholders.
• Support evaluation of new technology products, care models, workforce models, and service innovations through policy research, regulatory review, public funding analysis, strategic fit analysis, and operational feasibility assessment.
• Develop or contribute to Opportunity Analysis Briefs, including assumptions, policy and regulatory landscape, potential customers, market context, implementation feasibility, potential costs, time to market, and recommendations.
• Maintain related tools and repositories, including Google Forms, Monday.com boards, Notion pages, templates, decision trees, and Slack channels.
• Support semi-annual Strategic Initiatives meetings and initiative sponsors through preparation of materials, follow-up documentation, Monday.com tracking, and status updates.

Sales, Marketing, Product, and Proposal Support

• Contribute to strategy regarding which markets and populations to target, including incarcerated reentry, complex medical and disabled populations, pregnant women, infants, children, and other priority groups.
• Partner with Marketing by providing policy context, regulatory feasibility, funding analysis, and Medicaid/Medicare market intelligence that can inform positioning, messaging, and sales enablement.
• Support proposal strategy and content by preparing policy summaries, market context, opportunity rationale, regulatory feasibility language, and strategic recommendations.
• Collaborate with Product and Technology teams to share policy and market insights that may inform product roadmap discussions, solution design, or platform differentiation.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications & Skills:

• Education: Master’s degree in healthcare policy, public health, healthcare administration, public administration, business, or a related field preferred.re policy, public health, healthcare or public administration, or a related field.
• Experience: Minimum of 5–7 years of experience in healthcare policy, Medicaid/Medicare strategy, public-sector healthcare consulting, health plan strategy, market research, healthcare innovation, or related work.
• Professional experience with publicly funded insurance programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, D-SNPs, Medicaid managed care, state waivers, CMMI priorities, value-based care, and quality measures.
• Experience conducting policy analysis, Medicaid landscape research, waiver scans, public funding analysis, competitive scans, opportunity assessments, or business case support.
• Experience coordinating cross-functional projects, strategic initiatives, opportunity pipelines, or rapid-response processes.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills, with the ability to synthesize complex policy and market information into clear, executive-ready insights.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong project management skills, including the ability to track timelines, owners, dependencies, risks, decisions, and deliverables across multiple workstreams. Familiarity with Monday.com, Notion, Google Workspace, Slack, Asana, Smartsheet, or similar platforms preferred.
• Highly organized, reliable, detail-oriented, mission-driven, and comfortable working independently in a remote, fast-moving environment.

Diversity & Inclusion:

At Activate Care, we are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and teammates without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation, and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, military, and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Activate Care believes that diversity and inclusion among our teammates is critical to our success as a company, and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool.

The organization is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities throughout the hiring process. If you require accommodation to participate in the interview process, please let our team know at the time of scheduling.

The Company will not sponsor applicants for work visas at this time.