The 2013 Medicaid Report from the Wyoming Department of Health indicated that only 5% of Medicaid enrollees accounted for more than half of Medicaid expenditures in the state the previous year. However, the application of data science to Wyoming state Medicaid claims and billing data provided the key to reducing Medicaid-related ER visits by 20% over a one-year period and dramatically reduced costs as described in a 2014 article in Healthcare IT News.
As the vendor for the Wyoming Department of Health’s Medicaid quality care management program, Xerox performed the data mining that brought about these stunning results. The key to this achievement was flagging Medicaid patients who had more than 10 ER admissions over the previous year. Once these patients had been identified, continuity of care managers contacted them to help the patients better manage their care, and offered an around-the-clock nurse advice line for all enrollees.
Identifying these individuals proved to be a significant advance in cost-saving measures for Medicaid in Wyoming, and stands as a perfect example of how valuable data scientists are to the organizations that employ them.
Starting Salary Ranges for Data Scientists in Wyoming’s Biggest Cities
Several factors enticed large data science companies to locate in Wyoming. In a 2013 article, Wyoming News quoted the president of the Wyoming Center for Business and Economic Analysis, Dick O’ Gara, who touted the high-capacity fiber optic transmission lines that run through the area and create the redundancy crucial to data centers and huge cloud systems.
O’Gara spoke in favor of Cheyenne’s capacity to draw high-tech businesses. The city’s cool weather greatly reduces the cost of the electricity required to cool massive data centers. For instance, Green House Data cools its servers in its two data centers year-round just by using the outside air.
Wyoming’s fiber optic transmission lines connect Cheyenne and Laramie with Boulder and Denver, and the Wyoming Business Report featured Laramie as an up and coming tech business hotspot in a 2015 article. The city houses about 70 tech-related businesses including such Fortune 500 and multinational companies as Underwriters Laboratories and Autodesk.
The Wyoming Technology Business Center helps small technology-based companies in Laramie increase their prominence with its 30,000 square foot incubator, business counseling, and executive coaching services. Casper and Sheridan house satellite incubators.
Data scientists earned relatively high salaries in all of Wyoming’s major cities as of 2016 (Robert Half Technology) especially considering the low cost of living in the state. This tech staffing firm amassed substantial amounts of data on the starting salary ranges of tech workers by placing thousands of jobseekers throughout the country each year. These salary values do not include bonuses or relocation compensation.
Nearly two-thirds of the firms surveyed by Atlas Van Lines in 2011 provided full relocation to their employees. Given the rapid increase in demand for data scientists in recent years, this figure is likely to be higher at this time.
Robert Half accounts for geographical variation in Wyoming by drawing from US Bureau of Labor Statistics research and provides accurate salary expectations for data scientists in Wyoming:
- Casper: $106,000 – $149,000
- Cheyenne: $92,000 – $130,000
- Laramie: $92,000 – $130,000
- Sheridan: $91,000 – $128,000
Salaries for Wyoming’s Data Scientists in Two Key Roles
The Wyoming Department of Employment indicated that statistical modeling specialists in the state whose salaries fell within the 90th percentile earned an average salary of more than $133,000 a year as of 2015. An overview of salaries for data scientists working in the areas of statistical modeling and operations research is shown here:
Statistical Modeling
- $133,798
Operations Research
- $76,350
Salaries for Data Scientist in Wyoming Working as Statistical Modeling Specialists
The number of jobs for statistical modeling specialists in Wyoming is projected to increase by 36.8% between 2012 and 2022 according to the state’s Department of Employment. This rate of increase is even higher than the national average for data scientists working in this role.
Salary data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that statistical modeling specialists in Wyoming whose salaries were in the 90th percentile earned an average salary higher than the national average for specialists earning within this bracket as of 2014:
- Wyoming – $130,570
The US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics information shown here reflects salary data for broad occupational classifications that include data scientists. These estimates are expressed as the 90th percentile average to reflect the fact that data scientists are recognized as the top earners within each classification.