Policy Writing Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Pay Range - $140k-190k

Position Summary

The Lead Policy Writer owns the compliance documentation function at Correctional Healthcare Partners — the infrastructure that gives the organization its regulatory backbone across a growing multi-state correctional healthcare enterprise. This is a build role. There is no centralized policy library, no systematic review cadence, and no dedicated owner of this function today. This person will inherit that reality and build it from the ground up, partnering with clinical, legal, compliance, and operations leadership to create a policy environment that is current, defensible, and actually usable by the people delivering care.

Reporting to the General Counsel, the Lead Policy Writer is responsible for drafting, reviewing, maintaining, and communicating policies, SOPs, and clinical guidelines across all CHP sites and functions. As CHP adds new contracts, sites, and staff, this role ensures that every operational team has clear, legally defensible guidance — and that no compliance deadline passes without a policy in place.

What You'll Do

Build and Own the Policy Infrastructure

• Conduct a comprehensive audit of all existing CHP policies, SOPs, and clinical guidelines within the first 60 days — identify gaps, outdated materials, and non-compliant documents; produce an inventory with status and target completion dates for every item

• Design and implement a repeatable, documented policy development process in partnership with clinical leadership, legal, compliance, and operations — every new or revised policy goes through a defined review cycle with documented SME sign-off before publication

• Build and maintain a centralized, version-controlled policy repository; establish a review and audit schedule so no policy exceeds a 12-month review cycle and staff can locate any document in under 60 seconds

• Develop standardized templates, formatting conventions, and document control protocols that bring consistency across all policy types (policies, procedures, SOPs, guidelines)

Draft, Revise, and Publish Policies

• Personally draft, edit, and publish policies from regulatory source to final document — this is a hands-on writing role, not a supervisory or advisory one

• Translate complex regulatory requirements (CMS, NCCHC, state departments of correction, HIPAA, applicable accreditation standards) into clear, practical policy language that frontline clinical staff and correctional officers can follow

• Manage 15–20 active policy projects simultaneously without losing visibility into any of them; drive review cycles to closure, escalate when stakeholders are unresponsive, and deliver on time

• Identify unintended consequences, edge cases, and conflicts with existing policies before publication; conduct impact assessments and flag concerns to the General Counsel in writing

Regulatory Monitoring and Compliance Horizon Scanning

• Establish and operationalize a system to monitor federal and state healthcare regulatory updates — CMS, NCCHC, state departments of correction, TJC, OSHA, and applicable accreditation bodies — within the first 3 months

• Define and maintain a cadence for reviewing regulatory changes, triaging impact on CHP operations, and communicating required policy updates to stakeholders before compliance deadlines

• Maintain a tracker of compliance obligations with owners and due dates; proactively initiate policy updates rather than reacting after a rule change takes effect

Stakeholder Partnership and Communication

• Bring together clinical, legal, compliance, and operational stakeholders to co-develop policies; manage review cycles without losing momentum and resolve conflicting perspectives without letting one stakeholder's preference block a policy from going out

• For every new or significantly revised policy, develop plain-language summaries and, where needed, training materials that translate regulatory complexity into actionable guidance staff actually read and retain

• Ensure all staff impacted by a policy change are notified, have access to updated materials, and can demonstrate basic comprehension of their obligations

• Present policy changes to executive leadership and frontline staff in the same week, adjusting message and medium for each audience

• Perform all other duties as assigned

What We're Looking For

• You have personally built a policy library or compliance documentation infrastructure from scratch — not maintained an established one, not made minor edits to a well-organized system. You walked into a mess and built something that works

• You are an exceptional writer who edits relentlessly — you know the difference between a policy, a procedure, an SOP, and a guideline, and you never let a document out with a broken cross-reference or an incorrect regulatory citation

• You track regulatory changes before the deadline hits — you have a system, you run it, and you can give examples where your early monitoring gave your organization meaningful lead time

• You move fast without getting sloppy — when four policies need to be revised in 30 days, you draft, share, incorporate feedback, and publish; you don't schedule a kickoff meeting

• You bring stakeholders together and drive to decisions — you can facilitate a policy review with conflicting SMEs and come out the other side with a document, a sign-off, and a publication date

• You understand that in correctional healthcare, a delayed policy update is not an administrative inconvenience — it is a compliance risk and a patient safety risk

Minimum Qualifications

-Education

• Bachelor's degree required; degree in healthcare administration, public policy, political science, legal studies, nursing, or a related field preferred. JD or advanced degree a plus but not required.

-Experience

• Minimum 4 years of policy writing, compliance documentation, or regulatory affairs experience required

• Demonstrated experience personally building or rebuilding a policy infrastructure from limited or no foundation required — can describe the specific tools, processes, and outcomes

• Direct experience writing or managing policies in healthcare required; correctional healthcare, behavioral health, long-term care, or similarly regulated settings strongly preferred

• Experience working with or interpreting NCCHC standards, CMS conditions of participation, HIPAA, and/or state department of corrections requirements strongly preferred

• Experience managing high-volume document review cycles under tight regulatory or accreditation deadlines preferred

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Deep working knowledge of healthcare compliance frameworks including CMS, NCCHC, HIPAA, and state correctional health regulations; can interpret regulatory requirements and translate them directly into policy language without relying solely on legal counsel

• Exceptional writing and editing skills; produces clear, concise, unambiguous policy documents and plain-language staff communications with equal proficiency

• Strong project management skills; ability to track and drive 15–20 simultaneous active policy projects using structured tools without losing accountability on any of them

• Analytical ability to assess downstream operational impact of a proposed policy before publication and identify conflicts, edge cases, and unintended consequences

• Strong stakeholder management and facilitation skills; ability to manage cross-functional review cycles and resolve competing expert perspectives without stalling publication

• Meticulous about version control, document formatting consistency, and citation accuracy

• Proficiency with document management systems, SharePoint, or similar platforms; ability to build and maintain a structured, version-controlled policy repository

• Ability to communicate effectively across executive, clinical, and frontline audiences — adjusts message and format for each without losing accuracy

Schedule and Work Environment

Full-time salaried position. Primarily remote-eligible with periodic travel to CHP facility sites and the corporate office as required by project needs, accreditation preparation, or stakeholder engagement. Schedule is primarily Monday–Friday with flexibility required during regulatory deadlines, accreditation surveys, or high-volume policy revision cycles.

Physical Demands

• Operate computers and document management systems for extended periods

• Read and analyze dense regulatory, legal, and clinical documentation

• Communicate clearly in written and verbal form across all organizational levels

• Travel to facility sites and corporate offices as operationally required

• Manage sustained attention and accuracy across multiple high-stakes documents simultaneously