8 Option Care Health SQL Interview Questions (Updated 2024)

Updated on

October 31, 2024

At Option Care Health, SQL does the heavy lifting for analyzing complex healthcare datasets for insights into patient care trends and managing large, dynamic databases for real-time patient data accessibility. So, it shouldn't surprise you that Option Care Health almost always evaluates jobseekers on SQL problems in interviews for Data Analyst, Data Science, and BI jobs.

So, to help you prepare for the Option Care Health SQL interview, we've curated 8 Option Care Health SQL interview questions in this blog.

Option Care Health SQL Interview Questions

8 Option Care Health SQL Interview Questions

SQL Question 1: Identify Top Healthcare Service Users

Option Care Health is a leading provider of home infusion services and home healthcare services. As a data analyst, identify the top 10 "VIP" patients based on the frequency of healthcare services used and amount of spending in the last 6 months. Assume we have a patient database and a transaction database.

Example Input:

patient_idfirst_namelast_namedate_of_birth
1JohnDoe01/01/1955
2JaneSmith02/02/1965
3MaryJohnson03/03/1975
4JamesBrown04/04/1985

Example Input:

transaction_idpatient_idservice_idtransaction_dateamount
100011100101/01/2022$500
100022100202/02/2022$1000
100031100103/03/2022$300
100042100204/04/2022$800
100051100105/05/2022$700
100063100306/06/2022$2000
100074100207/07/2022$1500
100082100208/08/2022$1200
100091100109/09/2022$400

Answer:


This query joins the and tables on the field. It then filters the transactions to the last 6 months. The clause is used to aggregate the data by each patient. The clause sorts the patients by total spending in descending order, and then by frequency in descending order to get the top 10 VIP patients.

To solve a related customer analytics question on DataLemur's free online SQL code editor, try this recently asked Microsoft SQL interview question:

Microsoft SQL Interview Question: Teams Super User

Discover how Option Care Health is harnessing the power of Palantir's artificial intelligence to enhance patient care and streamline operations! Understanding their innovative approach can provide you with a deeper insight into how healthcare companies are evolving in today's tech-driven world.

SQL Question 2: Second Highest Salary

Given a table of Option Care Health employee salaries, write a SQL query to find the 2nd highest salary among all employees.

Option Care Health Example Input:

employee_idsalary
12500
2800
31000
41200

Example Output:

second_highest_salary
1200

Try this question and run your code right in the browser:

2nd Highest Salary SQL Interview Question

Answer:


You can find a step-by-step solution with hints here: 2nd Highest Salary.

SQL Question 3: What do stored procedures do?

Stored procedures are a lot like functions in programming. They're used to encapsulate and organize business logic into one unit of code, and they can accept multiple input parameters and return multiple output values.

For example, if you were a Data Analyst at Option Care Health working on a HR analytics project, you might create a stored procedure to calculate the average salary for a given department:


To call this stored procedure and find the average salary for the Data Analytics department you'd write the following query:


Option Care Health SQL Interview Questions

SQL Question 4: Calculate Average of Monthly Injections per Pharmacy

Option Care Health is a home infusion services provider. Let's assume that the company wants to analyze its data on injections administered per pharmacy on a monthly basis. The task is to write a SQL query to calculate the average number of injections per pharmacy each month.

Here are the sample tables:

Example Input:

injection_idpharmacy_iddate_administeredpatient_id
110106/01/2022 00:00:001234
210106/02/2022 00:00:002345
320206/10/2022 00:00:003467
420206/20/2022 00:00:004568
530307/01/2022 00:00:005679
630307/02/2022 00:00:006789
730307/03/2022 00:00:007890

Example Output:

monthyearpharmacy_idavg_injections
620221012
620222022
720223033

Answer:

Here's a PostgreSQL query to calculate the average number of injections per pharmacy each month:


This query first extracts the month and year from the column, then groups the data by year, month and . It calculates the count of injections divided by the count of distinct patients to find the average number of injections administered per pharmacy each month. The results are sorted by year, month, and average injections in descending order.

Pro Tip: Window functions are a frequent SQL interview topic, so practice every window function problem on DataLemur

SQL Interview Questions on DataLemur

SQL Question 5: What's the purpose of the constraint?

A is a field in a table that references the of another table. It creates a link between the two tables and ensures that the data in the field is valid.

For example, if you have a table of Option Care Health customers and an orders table, the customer_id column in the orders table could be a that references the id column (which is the primary key) in the Option Care Health customers table.

The constraint helps maintain the integrity of the data in the database by preventing the insertion of rows in the table that do not have corresponding entries in the table. It also enforces the relationship between the two tables and prevents data from being deleted from the table if it is still being referenced in the table.

SQL Question 6: Patient Prescription Behavior

Option Care Health is trying to analyze the prescription behavior of its patients and their adherence to the prescribed medication over time. With a SQL data structure consisting of two tables: and , they want to determine which drug has been prescribed the most and monitor whether there are any changes based on gender or age.

Patients table stores their basic information, and table contains information on all patients' prescription data.

Example Input:

patient_idgenderage
1M45
2F57
3M29
4F36
5M62

Example Input:

prescription_idpatient_iddrugprescribe_date
1011Lisinopril2022-05-06
1022Atorvastatin2022-05-07
1033Metformin2022-05-10
1044Atorvastatin2022-05-08
1051Metformin2022-06-08

Write a PostgreSQL query to find the most prescribed drug and check the distribution by gender and age.

Answer:


With the PostgreSQL query, we are counting the total number of prescription occurrences for each drug and also categorizing them by gender. At the same time, we calculate the average age of the patients being prescribed each drug. The result is ordered by prescription count in descending order only showing the most prescribed drug. This analysis helps us understand which medications are the most popular among patients and how age and gender are factors.

SQL Question 7: How do the 'BETWEEN' and 'IN' commands differ?

is used to select rows that match a range of values, whereas the operator checks for values in a specified list of values.

For example, say you were a Data Analyst at Option Care Health and had a table of advertising campaign data.

To find campaigns with between 500and500 and 10k in spend, you could use :


To find ad campaigns that were run on Facebook and Google's Display Network, you could use :


SQL Question 8: Search for Patients With Certain Conditions

You are given a database of the patients of Option Care Health. Write an SQL query that filters the database to find all records where the column contain the term 'diabetes' (regardless of case sensitivity).

The table is structured as follows:

Example Input:

patient_idfirst_namelast_nameregistered_datecondition
1001JohnDoe02/11/2019 00:00:00Diabetes
1002JaneSmith08/20/2020 00:00:00Heart Disease
1003SarahLee12/09/2018 00:00:00High Blood Pressure
1004PaulJackson03/25/2021 00:00:00diabetes
1005RogerWilliams07/15/2019 00:00:00Diabetes, High Blood Pressure

Given this input, your output should look similar to this:

Example Output:

patient_idfirst_namelast_nameregistered_datecondition
1001JohnDoe02/11/2019 00:00:00Diabetes
1004PaulJackson03/25/2021 00:00:00diabetes
1005RogerWilliams07/15/2019 00:00:00Diabetes, High Blood Pressure

Answer:


The PostgreSQL query uses the keyword to match text values against a pattern using wildcards. Here, the '%' is a wildcard character that matches zero or more characters. The function converts the condition to lower case before checking with the keyword, ensuring the case-insensitive match to 'diabetes'. This query will return all records in the table where the condition contains the term 'diabetes'.

Preparing For The Option Care Health SQL Interview

The best way to prepare for a SQL interview, besides making sure you have strong SQL fundamentals, is to practice a ton of real SQL questions that were asked in recent job interviews. In addition to solving the above Option Care Health SQL interview questions, you should also solve the 200+ DataLemur SQL Interview Questions which come from companies like Google, Uber, and Microsoft.

DataLemur Question Bank

Each interview question has hints to guide you, step-by-step solutions and most importantly, there's an online SQL coding environment so you can instantly run your SQL query and have it executed.

To prep for the Option Care Health SQL interview it is also a great idea to solve SQL questions from other healthcare and pharmaceutical companies like:

But if your SQL query skills are weak, don't worry about going right into solving questions – refresh your SQL knowledge with this DataLemur SQL tutorial.

DataLemur SQL Tutorial for Data Science

This tutorial covers SQL concepts such as manipulating date/time data and creating summary stats with GROUP BY – both of which pop up routinely in SQL interviews at Option Care Health.

Option Care Health Data Science Interview Tips

What Do Option Care Health Data Science Interviews Cover?

In addition to SQL interview questions, the other types of problems to prepare for the Option Care Health Data Science Interview include:

  • Probability & Stats Questions
  • Coding Questions in Python or R
  • Product Data Science Interview Questions
  • ML Interview Questions
  • Behavioral Questions focussed on Option Care Health company values

Option Care Health Data Scientist

How To Prepare for Option Care Health Data Science Interviews?

To prepare for Option Care Health Data Science interviews read the book Ace the Data Science Interview because it's got:

  • 201 interview questions taken from companies like Microsoft, Google & Amazon
  • a crash course covering SQL, Product-Sense & ML
  • over 1000+ reviews on Amazon & 4.5-star rating

Ace the Data Science Interview by Nick Singh Kevin Huo

Also focus on the behavioral interview – prepare for that with this list of common Data Scientist behavioral interview questions.

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