After years of devastating job search, I finally received an offer from a county organized Medicaid health plan few months ago. I have been busy learning about the US health industry while working, and it is very interesting. I like my team and I generally like the company as well, which is always good.
One thing, however, that I am wondering about a little bit is that I have not yet been able to sharpen what I have studied during my prelim exams and actually apply (from my limited perspective) the techniques to any of my work. I do understand that it has been only a few months, and that my understanding of any of the work is very limited, and so would be my following observations. Our team does work on reserving, which is done my IBNR calculations, but from my limited understanding, it does not involve any time value of money or variance analysis. In our company, there are two accredited actuaries and three pre-ASAs including myself, and I have a vague idea of what all the pre-ASAs are working on, but I didn't have a chance yet to study any work revolving variance analysis, regression, predictive analysis, time value of money, or anything from the preliminary exams such as actuarial value or credibility calculations. Being a public organization, the Medicaid rate setting (pricing?) are all done by the state and not by us, and Medicare bid or calculations involving risk scores for Medicare and exchange products seem to be all outsourced to different vendors.
Is this normal for a EL actuarial analyst in Health field? Should I be going through my dust covered exam manuals again in order to propose a new analysis involving an actuarial technique listed in Exam C? Experienced health actuaries, could you please share some career and work advice that could help me and others just starting the career on what we can do in order to help ourselves expand our mathematical/statistical skills and actuarial techniques learned in preliminary exams to grow as competent actuaries that can proudly represent both the company name and the actuarial profession itself? Also, I am currently in the process of going through the FAP Modules (I joined after passing all prelims), but I'm worried that once I earn my ASA designation, I will be an ASA with not enough exposure to the technical actuarial work, and end up with the familiar predicament of having mismatching experience and SOA designation progress, just in case of any contingencies. Any opinions on this would be appreciated. I am also interested in health actuarial consulting career in the future, and I was wondering if there is anything I should know in my current situation regarding this career goal? Lastly, just out of curiosity, is it difficult to go from Health to Investment/Finance/Risk management or Life? I do understand that it is not common to use the investment part in the health field although personally they were interesting while studying. Any advice is much appreciated. Thank you all in advance.
One thing, however, that I am wondering about a little bit is that I have not yet been able to sharpen what I have studied during my prelim exams and actually apply (from my limited perspective) the techniques to any of my work. I do understand that it has been only a few months, and that my understanding of any of the work is very limited, and so would be my following observations. Our team does work on reserving, which is done my IBNR calculations, but from my limited understanding, it does not involve any time value of money or variance analysis. In our company, there are two accredited actuaries and three pre-ASAs including myself, and I have a vague idea of what all the pre-ASAs are working on, but I didn't have a chance yet to study any work revolving variance analysis, regression, predictive analysis, time value of money, or anything from the preliminary exams such as actuarial value or credibility calculations. Being a public organization, the Medicaid rate setting (pricing?) are all done by the state and not by us, and Medicare bid or calculations involving risk scores for Medicare and exchange products seem to be all outsourced to different vendors.
Is this normal for a EL actuarial analyst in Health field? Should I be going through my dust covered exam manuals again in order to propose a new analysis involving an actuarial technique listed in Exam C? Experienced health actuaries, could you please share some career and work advice that could help me and others just starting the career on what we can do in order to help ourselves expand our mathematical/statistical skills and actuarial techniques learned in preliminary exams to grow as competent actuaries that can proudly represent both the company name and the actuarial profession itself? Also, I am currently in the process of going through the FAP Modules (I joined after passing all prelims), but I'm worried that once I earn my ASA designation, I will be an ASA with not enough exposure to the technical actuarial work, and end up with the familiar predicament of having mismatching experience and SOA designation progress, just in case of any contingencies. Any opinions on this would be appreciated. I am also interested in health actuarial consulting career in the future, and I was wondering if there is anything I should know in my current situation regarding this career goal? Lastly, just out of curiosity, is it difficult to go from Health to Investment/Finance/Risk management or Life? I do understand that it is not common to use the investment part in the health field although personally they were interesting while studying. Any advice is much appreciated. Thank you all in advance.
Please advise on career plan (currently in EL position in Health)