Manager, Prior Authorizations

About Natera Natera is a global leader in cell-free DNA testing and genetic diagnostics, committed to transforming healthcare through innovation and compassion. The Revenue Cycle Management team plays a crucial role in this mission—ensuring that patients receive access to life-changing testing while maintaining operational and financial excellence.

Position Summary:

The Manager, Prior Authorizations (Submissions Team) leads Natera’s Prior Authorization (PA) Submissions function, ensuring accurate, timely, and compliant submission of prior authorization requests across the company’s testing portfolio. This leader oversees a high-volume, metrics-driven operation that is critical to revenue capture and payor compliance. The role involves managing daily production workflows, developing staff, and partnering cross-functionally to improve turnaround times, reduce denials, and enhance overall revenue cycle performance. The ideal candidate combines operational discipline, data-driven decision-making, and strong leadership in payor policy navigation and healthcare reimbursement processes.

Key Responsibilities:

Operational Leadership

• Oversee daily operations of the Prior Authorization Submissions team, ensuring that all requests are processed accurately and within defined turnaround times (TAT).
• Monitor and optimize team productivity and quality performance, ensuring adherence to departmental KPIs (≥95% accuracy; daily volume targets).
• Manage queue prioritization, workload balancing, and escalation handling for complex or high-priority cases.
• Evaluate authorization trends, payor turnaround times, and process adherence.
• Workflow Optimization & Compliance
• Develop and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs) for submission workflows, ensuring alignment with payor-specific requirements and regulatory compliance (HIPAA, PHI).
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to minimize downstream claim denials and ensure end-to-end process integrity.
• Identify automation and technology enhancement opportunities to streamline processes and improve efficiency.
• Team Management & Development

Recruit, train, and develop a team of Prior Authorization Supervisors and Specialists; provide coaching, feedback, and performance evaluations. Foster a positive, inclusive, and high-performance culture that supports accountability, continuous learning, and operational excellence. Conduct quality audits and case reviews to ensure compliance with payor policy standards and internal quality metrics. Recognize and celebrate team performance milestones, driving engagement and retention. Performance Analytics & Continuous Improvement Track and analyze team performance data, including submission volumes, approval rates, and denials. Create and distribute monthly trend reports summarizing operational KPIs and payor-specific insights. Partner with the RCM Analytics team to design dashboards for real-time productivity and quality tracking. Serve as a subject-matter expert on payor utilization management policies, ensuring the team remains current with evolving requirements.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Strong understanding of medical billing workflows, payor authorization systems, and revenue cycle operations.
• Expertise in medical necessity criteria and payor-specific prior authorization requirements.
• Proven ability to analyze operational data, identify performance gaps, and implement corrective actions.
• Excellent communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills.
• Experience working with Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) teams.
• Proficiency with Google Workspace and other RCM workflow tools.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Healthcare Administration, Business, or related field, or equal years of relevant professional experience.

5+ years of experience in Revenue Cycle Management or healthcare operations, with at least 2 years in prior authorization management or payor policy leadership.

• Demonstrated success leading high-performing, metric-driven teams in a large-scale healthcare or laboratory setting.
• Knowledge of HIPAA compliance, PHI handling, and payor-specific utilization management guidelines.
• Experience implementing process automation or digital transformation initiatives is a plus.
• PowerBI and Salesforce experience preferred.

The pay range is listed and actual compensation packages are based on a wide array of factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, years & depth of experience, certifications and specific office location. This may differ in other locations due to cost of labor considerations. Austin, TX $105,400—$120,000 USD OUR OPPORTUNITY Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives. The Natera team consists of highly dedicated statisticians, geneticists, doctors, laboratory scientists, business professionals, software engineers and many other professionals from world-class institutions, who care deeply for our work and each other. When you join Natera, you’ll work hard and grow quickly. Working alongside the elite of the industry, you’ll be stretched and challenged, and take pride in being part of a company that is changing the landscape of genetic disease management. WHAT WE OFFER Competitive Benefits - Employee benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans for eligible employees and their dependents. Additionally, Natera employees and their immediate families receive free testing in addition to fertility care benefits. Other benefits include pregnancy and baby bonding leave, 401k benefits, commuter benefits and much more. We also offer a generous employee referral program! For more information, visit www.natera.com. Natera is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace environment, and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. Inclusive collaboration benefits our employees, our community and our patients, and is critical to our mission of changing the management of disease worldwide. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, and will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable laws. If you are based in California, we encourage you to read this important information for California residents. Link: https://www.natera.com/notice-of-data-collection-california-residents/ Please be advised that Natera will reach out to candidates with a @natera.com email domain ONLY. Email communications from all other domain names are not from Natera or its employees and are fraudulent. Natera does not request interviews via text messages and does not ask for personal information until a candidate has engaged with the company and has spoken to a recruiter and the hiring team. Natera takes cyber crimes seriously, and will collaborate with law enforcement authorities to prosecute any related cyber crimes.

For more information:

• BBB announcement on job scams
• FBI Cyber Crime resource page