Payer Strategy & Partnerships Lead

We're hiring Loula's founding Payer Strategy & Partnerships Lead! This is someone who thrives at the intersection of strategy, contracting, and execution. You'll own Loula's payer ecosystem. This means identifying and negotiating contracts with health plans, maintaining relationships with 20+ payer organizations in California, and building the operational infrastructure that helps these partnerships run smoothly. In addition to securing high impact payer contracts, you're building long-term, collaborative relationships where payers see Loula as a trusted partner who makes their job easier, and we see them as allies in expanding access to doula care. This is a 0-to-1 role with significant strategic influence. You'll create the playbook for how we work with health plans, then execute it day to day. You'll also serve as the internal expert on everything payer-related, ensuring Loula’s customer success, product, engineering, and revenue cycle teams know how we work with each plan. Your work directly expands the number of families doulas can serve, which means you're positively impacting one of the biggest barriers to building a sustainable doula practice.

• Lead payer expansion strategy by identifying which health plans to pursue each quarter based on market size, reimbursement rates, member demographics, and strategic fit.

• Negotiate contract terms with health plans on reimbursement rates, credentialing requirements, claims processes, and payment timelines.

• Create repeatable processes for how Loula identifies, launches, and scales payer partnerships.

• Present quarterly payer strategy recommendations to leadership including contract priorities, revenue projections, and risk assessments.

• Own plan launch operations for every new contract. This includes mapping out launch timelines and action items, coordinating with Product, Engineering, and Operations to solidify cross-functional requirements, working with Candid Health on EDI/EFT enrollments, and managing internal and external communications to ensure providers and stakeholders are ready for go-live.

• Create and maintain an internal "Payer Playbook": comprehensive documentation for all 20+ health plans covering contract nuances, reporting and billing requirements, credentialing processes, fee schedules, and key contacts.

• Serve as the primary point of contact for 20+ Medicaid and commercial payer organizations, building collaborative and growth-oriented relationships.

• Conduct regular check-ins with key payer contacts to review performance, identify opportunities for deeper collaboration, and explore pilot programs or expanded partnerships.

• Navigate payer organizations to identify and build relationships with the right stakeholders across credentialing, provider relations, network development, and population health.

• Advocate for Loula in contract discussions and partnership development, while addressing operational issues with professionalism and persistence when they arise.

• Support the Provider Success team with developing onboarding resources to support doulas with working with each different plan.

• Serve as the voice of payer dynamics internally — sharing trends, friction points, and opportunities with Product, Engineering, Provider Success, and Revenue Cycle to improve tooling and the overall payer experience.

• Enable Credentialing and Revenue Cycle teams with payer-specific guidance on requirements, timelines, and process optimization strategies.

• Strategic and execution-oriented. You think of the big picture and get into the weeds. You design systems, build processes, and run them yourself. You're equally energized by mapping out a long-term strategy and solving the tactical problem right in front of you.

• Fast and precise. You move quickly and execute with accuracy, even when external stakeholders operate on slower timelines. You're skilled at identifying the highest impact work and prioritizing ruthlessly to maintain momentum and deliver high-quality results.

• A masterful relationship builder and communicator. You manage complex, high-stakes partnerships with clarity, empathy, and confidence, communicating effectively across different channels and audiences . You balance relationship warmth with business rigor, maintaining friendly stakeholder connections while also pushing critical business initiatives forward.

• Energized by early-stage environments. You see ambiguity as an opportunity. You're the kind of person who gets excited about building something from scratch and creating structure where there wasn't any before.

• Mission-driven. You care deeply about perinatal health equity and provider empowerment, and that care shows up in how you do your work.

You have 4-8 years of experience in healthcare payer relations, payer contracting, healthcare go to market, provider network management, or healthcare operations. Specifically, you've:

• Managed external partnerships or stakeholder relationships with professionalism and strong follow-through

• Built workflows, documentation, and systems to increase visibility and help teams scale

• Collaborated across functions to solve problems and drive improvements

• Navigated complex organizations with competing priorities and multiple stakeholders

• Negotiated contracts, agreements, or terms (or will use your resources to learn quickly), preferred if experience in the California market

• Been an operator on a founding team or early employee at a startup

• $150,000+ annual salary

• Generous equity package

• Unlimited PTO

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage - FSA & HSA options

• Access to One Medical, Talkiatry, Peloton, Kindbody, and more

• Short & Long term disability insurance, Life insurance

• Team fun! Dinners, activities, retreats

California or New York preferred but remote is welcome.

Loula is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team.