Health Economics and Market Access
The people who decide whether anyone will ever pay for the product.
- Best fit
- Clinicians comfortable with data, models and long evidence timelines.
- Time to move
- 12 to 24 months, usually with added quantitative training
- Indicative pay
- 170k to 260k USD at director level
Health economics and outcomes research teams build the evidence and models that determine pricing, reimbursement and payer coverage. Clinicians who add quantitative training here become unusually valuable because reimbursement is where most healthtech companies fail, and very few clinicians understand it properly.
What the job actually is
- Build cost effectiveness and budget impact models
- Write value dossiers for payers and assessment bodies
- Design real world evidence studies
- Set the evidence plan that pricing depends on
Skills to build
- Cost effectiveness modelling and quality adjusted life years
- Real world data sources and their limits
- Coding, coverage and payment pathways
- Health technology assessment submission formats
Your first ninety days
- Take a health economics course and rebuild one published model yourself
- Write a short analysis of the reimbursement path in your specialty
- Target HEOR consultancies, which hire more openly than sponsors
Proof of work hiring managers ask for
- A model you built and can defend
- Published real world evidence or outcomes work
- A quantitative qualification
Titles and who hires
Common titles: HEOR Director, Market Access Lead, Value and Evidence Lead, Reimbursement Strategy Lead.
Typical employers: Pharma and device companies, HEOR consultancies, Payers, Health technology assessment bodies.
| Role | Level | Indicative band |
|---|---|---|
| HEOR Director | Senior | 170k to 260k USD |
Key signals
- Reimbursement literacy is the scarcest clinical skill in healthtech.
- Consultancies are the usual entry point and train you quickly.
- This pairs unusually well with advisory work later.
