Head of Payer Strategy and Partnerships

Job description

📌 ABOUT ALPACA HEALTH Alpaca Health enables clinicians to become entrepreneurs, starting in autism care. We help clinicians launch and scale their own clinics by providing AI-powered software, payer contracting, and full back-office infrastructure. Our goal is simple: shift power in healthcare away from large consolidated entities and back to clinicians. We've raised over $14M in funding from early-stage investors like Core Innovation Capital, Adverb Ventures, and South Park Commons, and are building for long-term category leadership. More importantly, we're serving hundreds of patients, while growing 30% MoM. This role is full-time. We’re looking for candidates based in NYC or open to relocating who are open to 5 days a week in the office. 🎯 ROLE: HEAD OF PAYER STRATEGY AND PARTNERSHIPS We are hiring a Head of Payer Partnerships to expand and strengthen Alpaca Health’s payer ecosystem. This role sits at the intersection of healthcare strategy, contracting, operations, and market expansion. You will help independent autism therapy practices access better reimbursement, faster growth, and stronger payer relationships through Alpaca’s platform. You will own the strategic relationships and operational systems that power payer access across the country, from negotiating rates and opening new markets to building referral pathways and laying the groundwork for value-based care models. 🚧 WHAT YOU’LL DO - Lead payer contracting and reimbursement negotiations across commercial and, where possible, government payers - Improve fee schedules, contract terms, and network positioning for Alpaca Health and partner practices - Create and operationalize referral pathway partnerships with health insurance payers - Partner closely with operations, credentialing, clinical quality, and product teams to improve payer readiness and network performance - Support long-term value-based care initiatives, including outcomes tracking, quality measurement, and payer reporting infrastructure - Help position Alpaca as the preferred independent-provider network for autism care - Build repeatable internal systems for contract tracking, payer communications, escalation management, and market launch readiness - Work cross-functionally with leadership on expansion strategy, payer mix optimization, and network strategy 🧠 WHO YOU ARE - You have 4-6 years of experience, with a GTM experience with health insurance payers - You have experience leading senior-level, complex stakeholder conversations and can represent the company externally - You are extremely ambitious and want to build something meaningful at high velocity. - You thrive in environments with little structure and high accountability. - You are a systems thinker who instinctively turns chaos into repeatable processes. - You value the ability to experiment quickly and pivot as needed, over executing pre-defined checklists. 🚀 WHY JOIN - Direct exposure to company-building at an early stage. - Real ownership of critical initiatives from day one. - The opportunity to materially impact families and clinicians. - A fast learning curve that few roles can match. - Strong compensation package 💵 Competitive salary 📈 Meaningful equity 🏥 Health benefits 🏖️ Flexible PTO 🍱 Dinner when working late