Professional Career Opportunities - Job Title Details

Program Research Specialist 1 (Health Care Finance), G-18

Occupation Group

Economics, Research and Statistics

Salary Information

Starting Salary

$61,270

Career Ladder Information

Salary Information for Program Research Specialist Trainee 1 Hlth Care Fi
Title Grade Hiring Rate/yr Job Rate/yr
Program Research Specialist Trainee 1 Hlth Care Fi 14 $52,198 $66,634
Program Research Specialist Trainee 2 Hlth Care Fi 16 $58,247 $74,135
Program Research Specialist 1 Hlth Care Fin 18 $65,001 $82,656
Program Research Specialist 2 Hlth Care Fin 23 $84,156 $106,454
Program Research Specialist 4 Hlth C F 27 $103,784 $127,830

All salary grades for trainees titles are non-statutory (NS) equated to the salary grade identified. These grade equations apply to the starting salaries in their respective salary schedule for the traineeship levels.

Job Description

Program Research Specialists (Health Care Finance) participate in research studies and assist in developing studies relating to reimbursement mechanisms, funding methodology, health economics, healthcare financing, cost containment, and patient classification systems. Use knowledge of current research methodology to evaluate and analyze agency programs and present your findings to operations and management officials.

Agencies with this Title

Minimum Qualifications

You must meet the requirements below to qualify for this title.

Either 1. A bachelor's degree or higher including or supplemented by nine semester credit hours in biostatistics, data analysis, data modeling, economics, econometrics, mathematics*, research methods, or statistics AND two years of professional research experience in health care financing** performing the collection, manipulation (e.g., data construction, merging data files, data cleaning, working with data files containing different levels of data) and evaluation of quantitative data directed toward review, analysis, and presentation related to program operations OR

2. A master's degree or higher including or supplemented by nine semester credit hours in biostatistics, data analysis, data modeling, economics, econometrics, mathematics*, research methods, or statistics AND one year of professional research experience in health care financing** performing the collection, manipulation (e.g., data construction, merging data files, data cleaning, working with data files containing different levels of data) and evaluation of quantitative data directed toward review, analysis, and presentation related to program operations.

*For the purposes of this examination qualifying mathematics courses will include actuarial science, finance, and mathematics.

**Health care financing may include managed care financing, and the health care financing experience must have involved experience in any of the following areas:

  • planning, developing, designing or modifying health care payment mechanisms;
  • collecting, analyzing, summarizing and assessing health care fiscal and statistical data;
  • conducting cost impact analysis of various health care financing payment models;
  • review and analysis of provider or managed care organization financial statements;
  • independent responsibilities for the development of narrative reports and/or position papers that include health care financing policy recommendations.

How to Apply

The November 2022 PCO Examination is closed, applications are no longer being accepted