Project Manager - United Concordia Dental

Highmark Health; Maryland; On-site; USD 95,000 - 116,000; Full time

Job summary

Highmark Health is seeking a Project Manager for United Concordia Dental, supporting a DoD contract. The role requires US citizenship and a background check.

Lead cross-functional delivery, manage schedules, risks, and stakeholder communications, and ensure readiness for transition to operations. The PMO-driven position emphasizes proactive leadership, timely escalation, and maintaining current project artifacts across complex healthcare and regulatory environments.

Qualifications

• PMO-level project leadership and governance experience.
• Experience creating charters, integrated plans, RAID logs, status reports, and stakeholder communications.
• Experience with both business and technology initiatives and hybrid delivery approaches.

Responsibilities

• Lead project planning and integrated schedule management.
• Manage RAID, dependencies, decisions, and change control.
• Facilitate meetings with clear agendas, owners, due dates, and follow-up.
• Oversee financial and vendor coordination and readiness planning.
• Coordinate readiness, adoption, and transition activities into operations.
• Ensure delivery artifacts stay current and reflect actual project health.

Skills

PMP certification

Change management

Agile methodologies

Leadership

Education

High School Diploma

Bachelor's degree in business/tech/healthcare management

Advanced PM training

Tools

Portfolio management tools

Collaboration platforms

Job description

United Concordia Dental Job Description :

Due to Department of Defense (DOD) contract requirements, the incumbent who fills this position must be a US citizen, and must also pass a background check**

The Project Manager is accountable for the disciplined planning, coordination, execution, monitoring, and closure of complex initiatives. The role converts approved business objectives into an actionable delivery structure and leads cross-functional teams toward agreed scope, schedule, cost, quality, readiness, and outcome commitments.

The Project Manager partners with the project sponsor, business owner, Program Manager, Business Analysts, technology partners, operational leaders, vendors, and subject-matter experts. The role establishes and maintains the integrated project plan, facilitates productive working and governance forums, manages risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies, decisions, and changes, and provides transparent evidence of delivery health.

Within the PMO operating model, the Project Manager owns initiative‑level execution. The Program Manager provides the broader portfolio context, governance connection, dependency visibility, coaching, and escalation support. The Project Manager is expected to lead proactively, surface difficult information early, frame recommended actions, and maintain momentum without substituting administration for leadership.

Project Definition, Planning, and Initiation

• Establish a clear, realistic, and controlled foundation for delivery.
• Develop and maintain fit-for-purpose project charters, integrated plans, schedules, milestone maps, resource needs, and delivery assumptions.
• Identify internal and external dependencies and incorporate them into planning, sequencing, and commitments.
• Align the delivery approach and level of control to initiative complexity, risk, regulatory exposure, and business need.

Execution and Integrated Delivery Management

• Lead day-to-day delivery with structure, urgency, and accountability.
• Coordinate cross-functional execution across business, technology, operations, clinical, regulatory, finance, data, vendors, and other delivery partners as applicable.
• Facilitate working sessions and project meetings with clear purpose, agendas, decisions, owners, due dates, and follow-through.
• Track progress against approved scope, schedule, cost, quality, readiness, and delivery commitments.
• Maintain delivery momentum by resolving routine barriers, reinforcing accountability, and escalating constraints that cannot be resolved within the project team.
• Validate that deliverables meet documented requirements and acceptance criteria before milestones or phase transitions are considered complete.
• Coordinate implementation, stabilization, transition-to-operations, and project closure activities.

RAID, Dependencies, and Decision Management

• Identify, document, assess, and actively manage project risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies in a current RAID log.
• Define owners, mitigation or resolution actions, target dates, contingency plans, and escalation thresholds.
• Manage interdependencies with other initiatives, teams, vendors, platforms, and operational commitments.
• Escalate material risks, issues, dependencies, and decision needs early, with clear context, impact, options, and a recommended course of action.
• Distinguish facts, assumptions, emerging concerns, and confirmed impacts in project reporting and discussions.

Scope, Schedule, Financial, and Change Control

• Establish and maintain approved baselines for scope, schedule, milestones, cost, and quality as applicable.
• Assess proposed changes for impact to outcomes, benefits, resources, dependencies, readiness, timing, cost, and risk.
• Ensure material changes follow the appropriate review and approval path before commitments are revised.
• Communicate approved changes and update project evidence, forecasts, and stakeholder expectations promptly.
• Monitor project financial health and partner with accountable leaders to address variances, funding concerns, or vendor impacts.
• Provide accurate, decision-useful information at the project, domain, and portfolio levels.
• Produce concise and timely status reporting that reflects actual delivery health, accomplishments, upcoming milestones, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions, changes, and support needed.
• Participate in domain or portfolio governance when project impact, escalation, or a leadership decision requires it.
• Maintain project artifacts as current working controls rather than static documents created only for compliance.
• Adhere to applicable project lifecycle, governance, audit, documentation, and records-management requirements.
• Connect technical or project completion to operational readiness and intended value.
• Identify stakeholder, process, technology, policy, operational, clinical, contractual, and support impacts as applicable.
• Integrate readiness, communications, training, adoption, acceptance, stabilization, and transition activities into the project plan.
• Track readiness criteria separately from task completion and elevate unresolved ownership, adoption risk, or acceptance gaps before implementation.
• Connect project deliverables and acceptance criteria to intended outcomes and preserve evidence of changes that may affect the benefit case.
• Ensure the transition from project delivery to business outcome ownership is explicit at closure.
• Promote collaboration, inclusion, transparency, and professional conduct across matrixed teams.
• Adapt leadership and delivery practices to project complexity, team needs, and changing conditions.
• Apply structured problem-solving and facilitate timely resolution of conflict or ambiguity.
• Capture lessons learned and contribute reusable practices, templates, and improvements to PMO delivery standards.
• Use approved collaboration and portfolio tools to maintain transparent, accessible, and reliable project information.

Education

• High School Diploma/GED
• Bachelor’s degree in business, technology, healthcare administration, operations, project management, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
• Advanced education or professional development in project management, business, technology, healthcare administration, change management, or a related discipline.

Due to Department of Defense (DOD) contract requirements, the incumbent who fills this position must be a US citizen, and must also pass a background check**

Experience

• ~1 - 3 years experience in a project manager role and/or in a project leadership role
• Five or more years of progressively responsible experience leading projects, initiatives, or complex cross-functional work.
• Demonstrated experience developing and maintaining project charters, integrated plans, schedules, RAID logs, decision logs, status reports, and stakeholder communications.
• Experience managing scope, schedule, dependencies, risks, issues, decisions, changes, and resource constraints.
• Experience in healthcare, insurance, regulated operations, technology-enabled delivery, or another complex environment.
• Experience with structured project lifecycle, governance, audit, or compliance requirements.
• Experience with both business and technology initiatives and with predictive, agile, or hybrid delivery approaches.
• Experience using portfolio-management and collaboration platforms to support transparent project controls and reporting.
• PMP certification or comparable project management training or certification. Change-management or agile certification is also valued where relevant.

Responsibilities

• Project planning and integrated schedule management
• RAID, dependency, decision, and change management
• Meeting facilitation and action management
• Financial and vendor coordination
• Change readiness, adoption, and transition planning
• Creates a delivery structure that the team understands and actively uses.
• Maintains reliable, current evidence of project health and does not allow key artifacts to become stale.
• Surfaces risks, issues, dependencies, and decision needs early enough for meaningful action.
• Keeps the project team focused on outcomes, commitments, readiness, and acceptance rather than activity alone.
• Balances process discipline with practical judgment and scales controls to the initiative’s complexity and risk.
• Completes an explicit, evidence-based handoff from project delivery to operational ownership and benefit follow-through.
• Remote
• Travel regularly from the office to various work sites or from site-to-site
• Works primarily out-of-the office selling products/services (sales employees)
• Physical work site required

It may not contain a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of employees to do this job.

Compliance

Compliance Requirement : This job adheres to the ethical and legal standards and behavioral expectations as set forth in the code of business conduct and company policies.

As a component of job responsibilities, employees may have access to covered information, cardholder data, or other confidential customer information that must be protected at all times. In connection with this, all employees must comply with both the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) as described in the Notice of Privacy Practices and Privacy Policies and Procedures as well as all data security guidelines established within the Company’s Handbook of Privacy Policies and Practices and Information Security Policy.

This includes but is not limited to adherence to applicable federal and state laws, rules, and regulations as well as company policies and training requirements.

105,900.00 Base pay is determined by a variety of factors including a candidate’s qualifications, experience, and expected contributions, as well as internal peer equity, market, and business considerations. Highmark Health and its affiliates prohibit discrimination against qualified individuals based on their status as protected veterans or individuals with disabilities and prohibit discrimination against all individuals based on any category protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

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