Lead, Payer Partnerships & Strategy

Headway; United States; Remote; USD 112,000 - 164,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity grant

Health benefits

Retirement plan

Equity ownership opportunities

Job summary

Headway, a leading mental healthcare platform, is seeking a Lead, Payer Partnerships & Strategy in the United States. You will own long-term health plan partnerships and drive strategic opportunities with major payers while collaborating with Strategy, Product, and Operations to align initiatives.

You’ll build external relationships, negotiate contract strategies, and translate data into actionable insights to shape company growth and product direction.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in the healthcare space.
• Deep exposure to payer business models and economics.
• Strong relationship-building and cross-functional collaboration.
• Comfort with ambiguity and driving strategic outcomes.
• Data-driven, self-starter with ability to run complex analyses.

Responsibilities

• Oversee long-term management of health plan partnerships.
• Lead contract strategy and renegotiations to optimize structures.
• Build relationships with health plan teams across functions (Network, Sales/Commercial, Product).
• Lead market analysis and healthcare research to shape strategy.
• Leverage data to generate insights and growth opportunities.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to inform product and operations strategy.

Skills

Healthcare experience

Payer models

Relationship building

Data-driven

Strategy

Job description

1 in 4 people in the US have a treatable mental health condition, but most providers don’t accept insurance, making therapy too expensive for most people. Headway’s mission is to fix this by building a new mental healthcare system everyone can access. We started by solving the biggest barrier to care: insurance. The admin work - credentialing, claims, payment reconciliation - is a nightmare. We’ve automated that.

But we’re going further. Over 75,000 providers across all 50 states run their practice on our software, serving over 1 million patients. We are building the best tools for therapists to run their entire practice, reimagining the experience of finding a therapist, and investing in the platform foundations to enable this at scale. We aren’t just a billing layer; we are becoming the platform where care actually happens.

We’re a Series D company with $325M+ in funding (a16z, Accel, Spark Capital, etc.), looking for exceptional people to help us achieve this mission. We want your time here to be the most meaningful experience of your career. Join us, and help change mental healthcare for the better.

About The Role

As a Lead, Payer Partnerships & Strategy , you will both support our continued growth with strategic partners in 2025 and beyond. In this role, you’ll work cross functionally with internal teams (Strategy, Product, Operations) to ensure ongoing success in our strategic health plan partnerships, while also deepening external payer relationships to identify new product opportunities and drive further partnership alignment. This is an exceptional opportunity to own high-impact objectives at a rapidly scaling, mission driven company.

You will:

• Be responsible for long term management of health plan partnerships with some of the largest health plans in the US
• Navigate contract strategy and renegotiations to optimize partnership structure and success
• Build and grow relationships with health plan teams and leadership across multiple functions (Network, Sales/Commercial, Product)
• Lead market analysis and own healthcare research to shape strategy
• Leverage data to generate insights and identify new opportunities for partnership growth
• Collaborate with cross functional, internal stakeholders to deliver insights to inform product and operations strategy

You’d be a great fit if…

• You have a minimum of 5+ years of experience in the healthcare space, preferably in roles within Customer Success, Business Development, or in Strategic customer-facing roles
• You bring deep exposure to payer business models and economics
• You are a relationship builder, and delight in forging meaningful bonds across all levels of an organization
• You thrive in ambiguity, and seek out opportunities to dive into unfamiliar challenges, drive towards outcomes, and shape strategy
• You are highly data-driven and a self-starter. You can drive complex analyses and translate ambiguous problems into key actionable insightsYou are operationally excellent, able to manage multiple high impact customers and large volume of moving pieces without breaking a sweat
• You seek an environment that fosters individual growth through open-feedback and high-autonomy
• You are motivated by the opportunity to face off against one of our generation’s defining problems: access to mental healthcare

Compensation and Benefits:

The expected base pay range for this position is $111,520-$164,000, based on a variety of factors including qualifications, experience, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for an equity grant, depending on the position and level.

We are committed to offering a comprehensive and competitive total rewards package, including robust health and wellness benefits, retirement savings, and meaningful ownership opportunities through equity. Compensation decisions are made holistically, ensuring fairness and alignment with market benchmarks while recognizing individual contributions and potential.

Benefits offered include:

Other compensation includes: discretionary bonuses and/or commission. Commission payments are monthly.

We believe a team’s strength is in its people, and we cannot achieve this mission without a team that reflects the diversity of this problem – across race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, national origin, religion, family status, disability, military status, and experience. Headway is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Headway will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided with reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please inform the recruiter when they contact you to schedule your interview.

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