Health Policy Intern

Health Policy Intern (Fall 2026) — Paid, Remote Laurel Health Advisors is a small health policy and research consultancy in Laurel, Maryland. We advise federal agencies, state Medicaid and public health agencies, county health departments, and nonprofit health organizations on the questions that decide whether a health program actually works — how it's authorized, how it's financed, whether it reached anyone, and whether the evidence says it helped. We're hiring two paid Health Policy Interns for the Fall 2026 semester. Because we're small, our interns don't get the peripheral work. You'll research live policy questions for real clients, draft analysis that senior staff put in front of those clients, and see how a project moves from a research question to a delivered product. You'll report directly to the President & COO. WHAT YOU'LL WORK ON Health policy research and analysis — roughly half your time:• Research federal and state health programs: Medicaid Section 1115 demonstrations, 1915(b) and 1915(c) waivers, State Plan Amendments, Medicare payment and coverage policy, rural health, maternal and child health, telehealth, and public health financing.• Build cross-state policy landscape scans documenting authority, program design, eligibility, financing, and reported outcomes.• Track what's moving — Federal Register notices, CMS guidance, state legislative sessions — and explain to the team why it matters to a specific client.• Draft issue briefs and memos, usually 2 to 10 pages, sourced to primary documents.• Pull and verify quantitative context from CMS, AHRQ, HRSA, CDC/NCHS, Census, KFF, MACPAC, and MedPAC. Program evaluation and data — roughly a third:• Run targeted and systematic literature reviews, abstracting into evidence tables and synthesizing what the evidence does and doesn't support.• Help build logic models, evaluation questions, measure definitions, and data collection plans.• Draft survey items and interview protocols; support interview logistics and note-taking.• Do descriptive analysis in Excel — cleaning data, pivots, rates and trends, clean labeled tables and charts.• Apply a codebook to qualitative data and pull the quotations that carry a finding. The remainder is deliverable production and team work: building the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint products clients receive, quality-checking figures and citations before they go out, and presenting your findings to the team — including a short capstone at the end of the semester. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR • Current enrollment in a U.S. graduate program (master's or doctoral) in health policy, public health, public policy, public administration, health administration, health economics, health services research, or a related field, continuing through Fall 2026.• At least one graduate course in health policy, health systems, health economics, research methods, or program evaluation.• Strong academic writing• Solid Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Excel is the tool you'll use most.• The ability to read a statute, a regulation, a piece of agency guidance, or a state plan and accurately say what it does.• Care about detail. At a firm this size, an unverified number reaches the client.• Availability for up to 15–20 hours a week through the full semester. Helpful but not required: coursework or work touching Medicaid or Medicare financing; prior experience at a government agency, health system, health plan, or research organization; familiarity with evaluation frameworks like logic models or PDSA; R, Stata, SAS, Python, Power BI, or Tableau; NVivo, Dedoose, or ATLAS.ti; a reference manager and a standard citation style. THE DETAILS • $20.00 per hour. Paid, temporary, non-exempt W-2 position.• Up to 15–20 hours per week. You set your schedule around your classes, with hours worked between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Eastern so you're reachable and available for client calls.• September 2026 through mid-December 2026.• Fully remote.• No bonus, commission, or other monetary compensation. As a temporary part-time position, it isn't eligible for employer-sponsored health insurance, paid time off, or retirement benefits.• We'll work with your academic program if you're seeking internship credit. Credit isn't a substitute for pay — the position is paid either way. WHAT YOU'LL LEAVE WITH A portfolio of real work: a policy brief or landscape scan, an evidence synthesis, and an analytic deliverable — named where client rules allow. Mentorship from staff with three decades across federal agencies, national research organizations, and consulting. A mid-semester feedback conversation and an end-of-semester review. And a clear-eyed sense of how health policy consulting actually gets done. HOW TO APPLY Send a resume and a one-page cover letter. In the cover letter, tell us which health policy areas you most want to work in and describe one research project you've completed and what you concluded from it. We review applications on a rolling basis until both seats are filled. Finalists have a 30-minute virtual conversation with the President & COO and the CEO. Questions go to Jason Goldwater at jgoldwater@lh-advisors.net. All hires complete Form I-9 verification. Laurel Health Advisors participates in E-Verify and does not provide visa sponsorship for this position. Laurel Health Advisors, LLC is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. We're committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees with disabilities; requests may be directed to Jason Goldwater at jgoldwater@lh-advisors.net