Health Economics & Outcomes Research (HEOR) Intern

Location: Sunnyvale, CA, us Employment Type: {'id': 'intern', 'label': 'Intern'}

Company Description

It started with a simple idea: what if surgery could be less invasive and recovery less painful? Nearly 30 years later, that question still fuels everything we do at Intuitive. As a global leader in robotic-assisted surgery and minimally invasive care, our technologies—like the da Vinci surgical system and Ion—have transformed how care is delivered for millions of patients worldwide.

We’re a team of engineers, clinicians, and innovators united by one purpose: to make surgery smarter, safer, and more human. Every day, our work helps care teams perform with greater precision and patients recover faster, improving outcomes around the world.

The problems we solve demand creativity, rigor, and collaboration. The work is challenging, but deeply meaningful—because every improvement we make has the potential to change a life.

If you’re ready to contribute to something bigger than yourself and help transform the future of healthcare, you’ll find your purpose here.

Job Description

Primary Function of Position

The HEOR Intern will join Intuitive’s Future Forward Medical Affairs team for a 10–12 week summer internship, reporting to the Staff Epidemiologist, Future Forward Medical Affairs. The intern will own a defined, scoped real-world evidence project, using administrative claims data and reimbursement coding (CPT/HCPCS, ICD-10-CM/PCS, MS-DRG) to characterize patient populations, procedure volumes, healthcare resource utilization, and costs for a technology in development. Working alongside senior epidemiology, data science, and market access colleagues, the intern will contribute analyses that inform value propositions and may help translate findings into inputs for budget impact or other economic models. The internship culminates in a final presentation to Future Forward leadership and cross-functional partners.

Essential Job Duties

Real-World Data Analysis: With guidance from senior team members, conduct a retrospective claims-based analysis to characterize patient populations, estimate procedure volumes, and describe utilization, outcomes, and costs relevant to a Future Forward pipeline technology.

Coding & Cohort Definition: Identify and validate CPT/HCPCS, ICD-10-CM/PCS, and MS-DRG code sets to define target populations, procedures, comorbidities, and outcomes; document code lists and assumptions so they can be reused by the team.

Study Planning & Programming: Contribute to a brief study protocol and statistical analysis plan; write, document, and quality-check analytic code, partnering with the team’s data scientist on shared data pipelines.

Evidence Review: Conduct a targeted literature review to inform study design, benchmark findings against published evidence, and surface evidence gaps for the technology under study.

Economic Modeling Support: Where relevant, translate claims-based estimates (e.g., procedure volumes, event rates, costs) into inputs for budget impact or other economic models, and support model development or validation.

Communication: Summarize findings in clear visualizations and slides; deliver a final presentation to Future Forward leadership; contribute to a draft abstract where findings warrant.

Qualifications

Required Skills and Experience

Hands-on experience with reimbursement coding systems (CPT/HCPCS, ICD-10-CM/PCS, and MS-DRG), gained through dissertation research, research-assistant work, or prior employment, including using codes to define cohorts, procedures, and outcomes.

Demonstrated experience analyzing at least one large administrative claims or hospital database (e.g., Medicare MedPAR/SAF, MarketScan, Optum Clinformatics, Premier, PearlDiver, Komodo Health, or similar), from data extraction and cleaning through analysis.

Proficiency in SAS and/or R and working knowledge of SQL

Strong written and verbal communication, with the ability to translate technical analysis for non-specialist audiences.

Comfortable working on a defined deliverable under the guidance of senior team members, with the independence to drive it to completion within the internship period.

Intellectual curiosity and comfort with ambiguity; this team works on problems that are not yet fully defined.

University Hiring Program Eligibility Requirements

University Enrollment: Must be currently enrolled in and returning to an accredited degree-seeking academic program after the internship.

Internship Work Period: Must be available to work full-time (approximately 40 hours per week) during a 10-12 week period starting May or June. Specific start dates are shared during the recruiting process.

Required Education and Training

Current enrollment in a Health Economics, Health Outcomes/Services Research, Health Policy, Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, or related degree-seeking program at the Doctorate (PhD) level.

Working Conditions

None

Preferred Skills and Experience

Experience developing or adapting budget impact models or other health economic models (e.g., cost-effectiveness, cost-consequence) in Excel, consistent with ISPOR good-practice guidelines.

Familiarity with Medicare payment methodologies (IPPS/MS-DRG, OPPS/APC, MPFS/RVU) and how coding drives payment across sites of service.

Research experience in medical devices, surgery, or procedural care.

Peer-reviewed publications or congress abstracts (e.g., ISPOR, AcademyHealth).

Experience with data visualization tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI).

Additional Information

Due to the nature of our business and the role, please note that Intuitive and/or your customer(s) may require that you show current proof of vaccination against certain diseases including COVID-19.  Details can vary by role.

Intuitive is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees, and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type, wi