Our Mission

Aurinia exists to make a difference in transforming people’s lives by delivering innovative treatments to patients living with serious, rare autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. From the earliest days of the company, we’ve applied an inventive, thoughtful, and responsible approach to developing therapies for people in need. Through our dedication, we relentlessly preserve and execute with integrity to reach our main objective, to improve patients’ health.

In addition to driving adoption of our approved therapy, LUPKYNIS™, for appropriate people with lupus nephritis, we are also actively pursuing a broader portfolio of innovative drugs for autoimmune disease.

Our strategy leverages the skills and knowledge of our incredible team and our deep experience in principled drug development and commercialization. Aurinia provides a working environment where individuals can thrive in a professional, creative, and inspirational atmosphere. Together, we are driven to make an impact for our patient communities as advocates and partners in innovation.

The Associate Director of Field Access Navigators (AD) will contribute to the overall strategy to minimize reimbursement barriers and optimize access to Aurinia products for patients and healthcare providers. Within the context of an integrated, cross-functional operational plan, the Associate Director is responsible hiring a team of Field Access Navigators (FAN) whose role will be to address access restrictions by working strategically with HCP office staff to resolve issues related to prior authorizations, denial and appeal processes and solving the most challenging patient access challenges.

The Associate Director will assist the FAN team within their assigned region in working with prescribing HCP office staff, Aurinia’s Patient Case Management Team and Specialty Pharmacy (SP) reimbursement staff on any access issues requiring escalation. This role will provide management oversight to assure resolution of HCP challenges as they arise by including appropriate Aurinia cross-functional team members. The AD will identify trends and analytics related to reimbursement issues and implement strategies designed to address identified issues with Aurinia’s Market Access Team as needed.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Direct and manage all activities of regionally aligned FAN team to ensure compliant and effective customer engagement and cross-functional engagment
• Deliver timely and effective coaching to FANs and provide developmental support
• Reimbursement expertise (coding, coverage and payment policy) on manufacturer products in all places of service under Pharmacy benefit required
• Lead the regional FAN team to provide timely reimbursement strategies for HCP billing office managers and staff including knowledge of billing and coding systems to include Medicare and Medicaid. HCP offices will range in size from large clinics to single practices.
• Identify prospective opportunities or coverage issues and support a central patient centric HUB.
• Provide case updates and coaching to FAN region members to remove barriers in the referral process and access to Aurinia products.
• Guide and coach FANs through difficult reimbursement scenarios.
• Work with cross-functional teams to build a strategy for patient access and reimbursement for prior authorization of Aurinia products
• Contribute to the development of department SOPs, education and training needs
• Develop and implement accountable KPI’s
• Maintain excellent clinical acumen, specific to Aurinia’s products, and ensure FANs complete all training to attain agreed upon competencies.
• Travel is required, sometimes without advanced notice.

The preferred candidate will possess a successful history of building and developing high performing teams, specifically in field reimbursement. Has strategic and operational reimbursement experience and familiarity with office practice policies and procedures. Must be collaborative in nature, be solution-oriented and possess strong verbal and written communication skills. Is proactive, results oriented and able to adapt to te changing priorities intrinsic to a growing company with minimal supervision.

Preferred Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree required, advanced degree or specific practice management experience preferred
• Minimum of 8 years in reimbursement, contract strategy, market access, large healthcare practice reimbursement or billing experience including Medicare/Medicaid programs with a focus on specialty drug products
• Minimum of 2 years direct management experience, preferably in field reimbursement
• Minimum of 4 years of demonstrated excellence and working knowledge reimbursement support and resolution directly with HCP office staff
• Demonstrated ability of applying reimbursement knowledge to resolve patient access barriers
• Previous experience with private and public payers strongly preferred
• Broad experience in other functional areas with the biopharma industry including product marketing, managed care, field sales, case management or large Healthcare Practice experience
• Proven track record of consistently meeting or exceeding goals and objectives
• Previous experience in creating, implementing and completing attainable business plans
• Understanding of national laws regarding reimbursement and regulations that impact the FAN role
• Experience working with a patient centric HUB

All candidate information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines