Cognizant is seeking to hire a Manager level Healthcare Payer Bid Manager responsible for leading end-to-end proposal management activities for strategic healthcare payer opportunities. This person will drive the development of competitive, compliant, and compelling responses across RFPs, RFIs, RFQs, renewals, and transformation pursuits. The Healthcare Payer Bid Manager will partner closely with sales, solutioning, operations, pricing, technology, legal, and executive stakeholders to develop win strategies, coordinate proposal development, and deliver high-quality submissions that align with client requirements and organizational growth objectives. They will also leverage deep healthcare payer domain knowledge across claims, enrollment, premium billing, contact center, care management, payment integrity, and provider operations to position differentiated solutions and support successful deal outcomes.
The qualified candidate can live anywhere in the 48 contiguous states to work remotely and must be able to travel up to 25% as needed for business meetings.
Responsibilities:
Bid & Proposal Management
- Lead end-to-end bid management activities for healthcare payer opportunities, including RFPs, RFIs, RFQs, renewals, BAFO submissions, and strategic proposal responses.
- Develop proposal plans, response schedules, governance checkpoints, and content development timelines to ensure timely and compliant submissions.
- Coordinate cross-functional response teams including sales, solution architects, operations leaders, transition teams, pricing, technology, legal, compliance, and executive leadership.
- Facilitate pursuit kickoffs, strategy sessions, color team reviews, executive reviews, and submission readiness assessments.
- Manage proposal repositories, response libraries, templates, and knowledge assets to improve proposal quality and response efficiency.
- Ensure all customer requirements are analyzed, tracked, and addressed through compliance matrices and response management processes.
- Drive proposal governance and quality reviews to ensure consistency, accuracy, completeness, and alignment with client evaluation criteria.
Healthcare Payer Solution Development Support
- Provide support to solutioning teams to develop compelling healthcare payer operating models, transformation roadmaps, automation strategies, and BPaaS solutions.
- Support the creation of value propositions, executive summaries, win themes, competitive differentiators, and business outcome messaging.
- Contribute domain expertise to ensure proposed solutions address healthcare regulatory requirements, operational best practices, and evolving market trends.
Stakeholder & Executive Engagement
- Serve as the central point of coordination across pursuit teams, ensuring clear communication, accountability, and alignment throughout the bid lifecycle.
- Support deal governance activities by preparing pursuit documentation, executive approvals, risk assessments, and business case reviews.
- Prepare executive leadership for client presentations, proposal defenses, and oral presentations.
- Facilitate stakeholder reviews and decision-making forums to resolve issues, manage dependencies, and maintain proposal momentum.
- Develop executive-level pursuit status reporting and communicate progress, risks, and mitigation plans.
Quality, Risk & Continuous Improvement
- Identify proposal risks, assumptions, dependencies, and compliance concerns early in the pursuit process and drive mitigation plans.
- Establish and maintain proposal management best practices, governance standards, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Analyze pursuit outcomes, lessons learned, and win/loss feedback to improve future proposal effectiveness and competitiveness.
- Ensure all proposal content aligns with organizational standards, contractual requirements, regulatory expectations, and approved messaging.
Required Qualifications:
- 8+ years of experience in Healthcare Payer operations, bid management, proposal management, pursuit management, consulting, or healthcare BPaaS services.
- Demonstrated experience leading large, complex healthcare payer RFP pursuits.
- Strong understanding of healthcare payer functions including Claims, Enrollment & Eligibility, Premium Billing, Contact Center, Provider Services, Utilization Management, Payment Integrity, and Care Management.
- Experience coordinating cross-functional teams across Sales, Solutioning, Pricing, Operations, Technology, and Legal organizations.
- Strong project management, stakeholder management, and executive communication skills.
- Experience working with proposal management tools, content repositories, and pursuit governance frameworks.
- Ability to manage multiple concurrent pursuits under aggressive deadlines.
- Familiarity with Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, Commercial, ACA, Duals, and related healthcare payer markets preferred.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Recently performed in a similar role with a large matrixed organization and directly supported medium to large Healthcare Payer clients.
Compensation & Benefits (U.S. Pay Transparency)
The annual base salary range for this Manager level position is $110,000 - $140,000 depending on experience and qualifications.
Benefits Include
- Medical, Dental, Vision, and Life Insurance
- Paid Time Off and Company Holidays
- 401(k) with company contributions
- Short- and Long-Term Disability
- Paid Parental Leave
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan
Disclaimer: Compensation and benefits are subject to change in accordance with applicable laws.
About Cognizant
Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is an AI Builder and technology services provider, bridging the gap between AI investment and enterprise value by building full-stack AI solutions for our clients. Our deep industry, process and engineering expertise enables us to build an organization’s unique context into technology systems that amplify human potential, drive tangible outcomes and keep global enterprises ahead in a fast-changing world. See how at cognizant.ai or @cognizant.
Additional employment information
Compensation information is accurate as of the date of this posting. Cognizant reserves the right to modify this information at any time, subject to applicable law.
Applicants may be required to attend interviews in person or by video conference. In addition, candidates may be required to present their current state or government issued ID during each interview.
Cognizant is an equal opportunity employer. Your application and candidacy will not be considered based on race, color, sex, religion, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by federal, provincial or local laws.
