Independent Health Association

Independent Health was created in 1980, the culmination of a University at Buffalo graduate school project that determined the community could benefit from a health maintenance organization model that focused on preventive care versus reactive care. Independent Health is recognized as an innovative health care plan with more than 1,100 associates serving nearly 380,000 members. 

Independent Health is not a clinical site. Here, you’ll work with claims data from the entire Independent Health network spanning all of Western New York state. The experience you gain at this site will teach you about the dimensions of, generation of, and uncertainties within claims data and other data available to a health plan.

Rotating through Independent Health headquarters will increase your familiarity with querying and assessing population-level data. This training site enables you to identify risks and inequities within the population, as well as understand the population health functions of a health plan.

The organization has an extensive information technology and analytics department, a population health management department and multiple other functions such as human relations and government affairs. 

This training site enables you to meet individually with organization leaders to learn about the organization’s operations, including strategy, government affairs, population health management and human resources. You’ll attend meetings relevant to population health management and shadow provider relations representatives as they visit primary care and specialty offices to troubleshoot issues, listen to provider concerns and communicate the company’s messages. 

You will also have the opportunity to gain access to the organization’s data warehouse and undertake training on creating queries to answer population health questions.