What Happens Next

So Ben Linder gets props for phrasing the question in the way that would finally allow me to come to terms with making a decision (and for putting up with my harassing him for advice over the summer).

(first I suppose an update on things as they stood on Thursday is in order)

I got an offer from athenahealth (www.athenahealth.com) last Wednesday (May 24th) to be one of their new Denials Associate. On the Friday morning before I graduated from Olin, I took a drive down a now familiar path to athena for my fifth and final interview. Previously I’d been interviewed for a programming position (athena decided to hire someone with more experience) and a process innovation position (athena decided they wanted a manager not an entry-level person. As you may have noticed from the number of interviews and positions, they’ve definitely been interested – it’s just been a matter of finding the right fit. Athena’s primary product right now is a software/service package that helps doctors manage their billing/claim cycle with insurance companies. As a Denials Associate I would have effectively two tasks: A) data mining/data analysis of athena’s claims data to identify problems with payor (insurance company) performance and B) working with others at athena to solve those problems and eliminate waste from the system overall because each denied claim is basically money that’s just been tossed away. Another way of putting it is that I would be responsible for reverse engineering insurance company policies/practices and helping athena’s system adapt to the idiosyncrasies of each insurance company.

I really like athena as a company. It’s ~450 people so far and growing pretty rapidly. It feels a little Olin-like sometimes. They have a highly collaborative “teaching and learning” culture and perhaps more importantly basically everyone I spoke with completely believed in athena’s overall mission, which is to develop services for doctors that will enable them to focus on their patients and not on running their business – it’s all about improving the system and making people’s lives better. I was astonished at how universal the belief in the culture and this mission was throughout the people I met. I wish the Olin Community could fall so universally behind a single mission – I think even we would be amazed with what we could accomplish…but I digress. So the summary is that I was incredibly impressed with the people and the environment at athena.

Not wanting to make a decision until I knew what all my options were, I asked for and received a little bit of time to think things over and to make sure I knew what my choices were. At this point, I had two other possibilities floating around: one with a consulting firm in Boston and another with the folks at ERT – though the ERT thing would be a 3 month contract that might not survive their impending merger with another NGO. I got the final word from ERT on Wednesday that the ducks were just not going to align quickly enough for my timeline given the existence of the athena offer, so that path closed. But the consulting offer did materialize after all.

This offer, which I received in concrete form this Wednesday, as a consultant in the energy practice of a national consulting firm. For a couple of years, I’ve been saying to myself that I wanted to go into consulting and the energy sector. So this offer offer fit perfectly into my imagined career trajectory. Spend a couple of years doing energy consulting and then use that experience as a baseline in deciding whether I’d rather get an MBA and play in the private sector or an MPP (Master of Public Policy) and go the government route. It made a great deal of sense and it fit so well with THE PLAN.

I told my mom that I wanted to feel like I’d actually made a choice, that I hadn’t just gone with athena because they were the only option on the table. Turns out that I forgot that as Chris (back home) often points out, I sometimes have trouble making decisions. I’ve probably been debating between this consulting company and athena for a couple of weeks now since I was pretty sure that if I had a choice to make it would be between them.

Both offers were in Boston, but athena is potentially significantly more accessible over public transport, so I can avoid the expenses associated with buying a car (though I’m thinking that a ZipCar has a certain amount of appeal for occasional drives around town).

There are a great number of similarities and differences that I could talk about, but I’m going to confine it to four key things.

1. Passion

Everyone at Olin has passion. It’s sometimes hard to know what their passions are and often another person’s passion holds no appeal to me and vice versa, but regardless there is a sense of energy and excitement around Olin that is due, at least in part, to the passion imbedded in virtually everyone there. I like the idea of working with people who are invested in what they’re doing. Heck, I want to be invested in what I do – I don’t want it to just be a job.

2. Stability vs. Change

When I talked to my dad on Wednesday night, he brought up an interesting point. The consulting company is stable. It’s a public company that’s been around for a while and many of its employees have been doing consulting for a great number of years. athena is relatively new – founded in ~1999 if memory serves – and is growing fast as they expand their services nationwide. Maybe it’s my age and maybe it’s post-Olin adventure-seeking syndrome, but I like the idea of being in a dynamic environment that’s constantly changing and evolving.

3. Investment

One of the things that I’ve realized after learning more about the athena position is that both consulting and being a denials associate involve a certain degree of analysis and problem-solving. The difference is that consulting allows me to work on (probably) a greater diversity of issues whereas athena would allow me to actually be involved in driving the necessary changes. Thus athena grants more opportunity for me to follow-through with ideas, but this ownership may relate to a loss in diversity since I’m inherently always working for the same organization.

4. What am I looking for?

A stepping stone for my strategic life plan or a good experience that I’ll enjoy and learn from? This is the framing that Ben deserves credit for. I’m 23 and I can honestly say that it’s unlikely I have any clear picture of exactly what I want to be doing in ten years. Thus the idea that my previously mentioned strategic plan should be the basis of my decision is a little silly, because I don’t honestly know if that plan is founded on anything except my imagination. On a related note, we’re cleaning the house (particularly all the junk I’ve accumulated over the years). Let’s take a trip back in time approximately 6 years. I expected to attend Carnegie Mellon and be doing robotics work for NASA in 10 years. Looking back I suppose you could say that plans change. Olin hooked me and changed me in a great number of ways. I didn’t even apply to Carnegie Mellon for undergrad…why? Because I was sure I’d go there for grad school since they have a PhD program in robotics. Now I want an MBA from Stanford. So times change, things change, and people change.

And maybe I just don’t know enough to make a “strategic” decision. Maybe I should follow my gut on this.

It’s going to be amusing to read this in a couple of years. Just like it was amusing to read those past reflections on where I thought I would be going…

Finale

So you’ve probably guessed where this is heading, but just to be clear I’m moving back to Boston and am going to accept athenahealth’s offer. Ultimately it is a job that sounds interesting, an environment that sounds great, and a feeling that I’m making things better by going to work each day (Ben also gets props for framing it in this way during my rapid farewells on Monday morning after graduation).

Now it appears that in addition to being an Oliner or Olinite (whichever your preference), I will also be athenista (I kid you not, this is really their word).

Post-script

When I was returning a couple of DVDs today (I started Lost and 24 during my time at home), I ended up in conversation with someone trying to get signatures for a ballot initiative. The initiative’s goal is lower the cost of prescription drugs for Oregonians. Maybe it’s just me, but Flicks and Pics does not strike me as the highest traffic area to be canvassing for signatures. I’m choosing it as a conveniently timed sign that healthcare is the place for me for a couple of years.

I would like to thank Ben, Gill, Rob, Ted, Chris, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Barb, and everyone else who had to put up with me while I was debating what I wanted to do (apologies if I missed someone).

I start on July 11th.