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Ascension is seeking an experienced LTC Survey Testing, Validation & Business Requirements Analyst to support CMS in evaluating, refining, testing, and implementing improvements to the federal Long-Term Care survey process.

The ideal candidate combines the analytical discipline of a senior business analyst with the operational perspective required to understand how healthcare policies, survey procedures, system functionality, data, and end-user workflows interact. This individual will help translate regulatory, policy, operational, and stakeholder needs into clear survey-process specifications, business requirements, test scenarios, validation criteria, documented findings, and actionable recommendations.

We are particularly interested in candidates who are comfortable operating at the intersection of healthcare operations, business process analysis, requirements development, system testing, data validation, and federal program support. Experience with nursing home survey processes, CMS survey systems, iQIES, LTCSP, RBS, or similar healthcare regulatory environments is highly desirable.

The successful candidate should be highly analytical, detail-oriented, organized, and able to work effectively in an environment where requirements can evolve in response to policy changes, survey findings, data trends, user feedback, and CMS priorities. The individual should be self-driven, comfortable working with limited day-to-day supervision, skilled at identifying emerging problems before they affect implementation, and capable of managing multiple testing, analysis, and requirements activities simultaneously.

This position is well suited for an individual who does more than document requirements. Ascension is seeking someone who can understand why a process is changing, determine what must change operationally or technically, develop a method for testing that change, evaluate whether the change works as intended, and clearly communicate findings and recommendations to CMS stakeholders.

Contractor Role Summary

The LTC Survey Testing, Validation & Business Requirements Analyst will support CMS throughout the lifecycle of Long-Term Care survey-process development and modification.

The Analyst will help evaluate proposed changes to nursing home survey processes, translate operational and policy needs into business requirements for iQIES, develop and execute testing and validation activities, evaluate system algorithms, analyze survey results following releases, and recommend corrective actions or process improvements.

A major responsibility of the position is creating traceability between the business need, survey-process requirement, system requirement, test condition, observed result, issue identified, and recommended resolution. The Analyst will work with CMS subject matter experts, state survey agencies, surveyors, stakeholders, and other contractors to make sure proposed changes can be implemented and used effectively in real survey environments.

The position will also support post-release surveillance by reviewing survey data, system-generated information, iQIES help-desk issues, and stakeholder questions for patterns that may indicate a process, policy, usability, or system issue.

Depending on assignment, the Analyst may participate in remote or onsite testing of proposed survey processes and related system functionality. When participating as a contractor surveyor during CMS onsite testing, the individual must possess the applicable Surveyor Minimum Qualifications Test (SMQT) certification.

Position Responsibilities and Anticipated Activities

The LTC Survey Testing, Validation & Business Requirements Analyst will:

• Analyze proposed and existing Long-Term Care survey processes to identify operational, functional, policy, data, and system requirements associated with new regulations, policy revisions, CMS initiatives, priorities, and survey-process improvements.
• Translate CMS policy, operational needs, stakeholder feedback, surveyor workflows, and survey-process changes into clear and testable business requirements, specifications, functional requirements, acceptance criteria, and supporting documentation.
• Develop business requirements supporting new or revised functionality within iQIES before planned survey-process releases.
• Map business requirements to survey-process components, system functionality, test conditions, expected outcomes, and acceptance criteria to maintain traceability throughout development and validation.
• Develop structured test plans, test scenarios, testing criteria, case studies, validation procedures, and expected results for proposed survey-process changes and associated system functionality.
• Execute remote testing and, when assigned, participate in onsite testing to validate proposed survey concepts, workflows, business rules, system functionality, algorithms, and case studies.
• Validate system algorithms before survey-process releases by comparing proposed logic and outputs against approved business requirements, expected survey behavior, and established testing criteria.
• Evaluate system algorithms after release, when directed by CMS, to confirm that implemented logic continues to produce accurate, consistent, and supportable survey results.
• Document test execution, observed results, variances, defects, process concerns, data-quality issues, unresolved questions, and recommended corrective actions in clear testing and validation reports.
• Recommend alternatives for resolving identified survey-process, workflow, business-rule, usability, data, or system issues discovered during testing, validation, monitoring, or post-release analysis.
• Monitor survey-process performance following releases and identify patterns that could indicate unintended effects, inconsistent results, workflow inefficiencies, policy interpretation issues, or system problems.
• Collect, review, and analyze applicable survey data following releases or as directed by CMS to evaluate the accuracy and consistency of survey execution and system results.
• Support analysis involving CMS survey and quality data sources, which may include the CCSQ Data & Analytics Portal, Minimum Data Set data, iQIES Dashboard information, Nursing Home Care Compare, CASPER, and other CMS-authorized sources.
• Review survey-process inquiries received from surveyors and other stakeholders, research the underlying business or policy question, and develop recommended responses for CMS consideration.
• Examine survey-process-related iQIES help-desk tickets to identify recurring issues, emerging trends, potential process deficiencies, policy questions, training needs, or system problems.
• Perform root-cause and trend analysis to distinguish isolated user issues from broader survey-process, policy, data, or technology concerns requiring CMS attention.
• Prepare findings, recommendations, white papers, requirements documentation, test summaries, validation summaries, monitoring reports, issue analyses, and other artifacts that enable CMS to make informed implementation and process-improvement decisions.
• Collaborate with CMS, state survey agencies, surveyors, stakeholders, subject matter experts, data analysts, system teams, and other contractors involved in survey-process development and implementation.
• Participate in requirements reviews, testing sessions, validation meetings, release-readiness discussions, weekly project meetings, and ad hoc working sessions as required.
• Maintain requirements, test findings, decisions, action items, and supporting documentation in an organized and auditable manner.
• Apply Section 508 accessibility requirements when preparing electronic deliverables, documentation, reports, and other materials for CMS.
• Protect CMS information, including personally identifiable information, controlled unclassified information, and other sensitive Government information, in accordance with applicable CMS and HHS security, privacy, records-management, and data-handling requirements.