Lead UX Design Researcher

Join us as we work to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.

Position Summary: 
Help shape intuitive experiences that support medical coding, documentation, authorization, and revenue cycle management (RCM) workflows. The Lead UX Researcher, RCM Documentation will lead research and design for complex healthcare workflows, translating user needs and business requirements into effective experiences from concept through implementation. This role partners closely with Product, Engineering, and healthcare practices to improve accuracy, efficiency, and usability across interconnected clinical and revenue cycle workflows. This position is hybrid in Boston, MA and reports to the Director User Experience.

About the Team: 
The RCM Documentation team designs experiences that support accurate documentation, authorization, medical coding, and revenue cycle workflows. The team works closely with healthcare practices to understand real-world needs and uses research, prototyping, testing, and iterative design to develop and refine solutions. Team members partner across Product, Engineering, Design, and related healthcare and revenue cycle teams to create consistent experiences across interconnected workflows. The team also explores appropriate uses of AI and emerging technologies to improve how solutions are researched, designed, tested, and delivered.

Essential Job Responsibilities:

• Lead user research using methods such as interviews, contextual inquiry, observation, and on-site practice visits to understand workflows, user needs, and business challenges.
• Develop experience strategies, information architecture, workflows, prototypes, and detailed design specifications from early concepts through implementation.
• Apply systems thinking across interconnected clinical and revenue cycle workflows, accounting for upstream inputs, downstream impacts, role handoffs, exceptions, and opportunities for automation.
• Translate research findings, user feedback, competitive analysis, and industry insights into clear design priorities and recommendations.
• Establish and communicate UX direction for complex initiatives, partnering with Product, Engineering, and Design to align decisions and manage dependencies across products and workflows.
• Facilitate design discussions and usability evaluations with cross-functional partners and healthcare practice users, incorporating feedback throughout product development when appropriate.
• Define and apply consistent interaction patterns and design approaches across related documentation, authorization, medical coding, and revenue cycle experiences.
• Integrate AI tools into appropriate research, synthesis, design, and prototyping workflows; evaluate their usefulness and limitations, apply human judgment when interpreting AI-assisted outputs, and share effective practices with design and cross-functional partners.
• Advance UX quality by contributing design expertise, research insights, and reusable practices across the broader product development organization.
• Travel approximately 15–25% annually within the United States to conduct research and validate solutions with healthcare practices.

Additional Job Responsibilities:

• Conduct competitive and industry research to inform product and experience decisions.
• Build relationships with healthcare practice users to support ongoing research, feedback, and solution refinement.
• Collaborate with teams responsible for related workflows to identify dependencies and create consistent user experiences.
• Explore emerging design, research, prototyping, and AI capabilities that may improve product development practices.
• Contribute to shared UX methods, standards, frameworks, and design practices.
• Support cross-functional teams in connecting design decisions to user needs and measurable outcomes.
• Participate in the continued development of research and design approaches for complex healthcare workflows.

Expected Education & Experience:

• 5+ years of professional UX or product design experience, including demonstrated experience designing healthcare systems.
• Experience using primary research methods such as user interviews, contextual inquiry, and observation.
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize user research and feedback into clear design direction and product recommendations.
• Experience designing enterprise, financial, healthcare, or other complex operational workflows.
• Demonstrated experience leading significant design initiatives and building alignment among Product, Engineering, Design, and other partners.
• Experience creating experience frameworks, information architecture, interaction designs, wireframes, prototypes, and detailed design specifications.
• Experience using AI tools to support research, design, prototyping, or product development and the ability to evaluate and adapt these approaches as capabilities evolve.
• Portfolio demonstrating problem framing, research synthesis, interaction design, and the rationale behind design decisions.
• Ability to travel within the United States for healthcare practice visits approximately 15–25% annually.
• Experience with healthcare revenue cycle management, medical billing, ambulatory or independent practice environments, healthcare AI applications, or AI-enabled product development processes is preferred.
• Healthcare experience required.

Expected Compensation

The base salary range shown reflects the full range for this role from minimum to maximum. At athenahealth, base pay depends on multiple factors, including job-related experience, relevant knowledge and skills, how your qualifications compare to others in similar roles, and geographical market rates.  Base pay is only one part of our competitive Total Rewards package - depending on role eligibility, we offer both short and long-term incentives by way of an annual discretionary bonus plan, variable compensation plan, and equity plans.