Director Merchant Services & Compliance

About the role

The Director, Merchant Services supports the Vice President, Debt Management and Treasury Operations and helps lead the enterprise merchant services program for a large, complex healthcare system operating 47 hospitals and hundreds of ambulatory/health service offices across five states and international. This role is accountable for the strategy, governance, performance, and daily operations of card and digital payment acceptance across all patient, retail, and ancillary revenue channels (in-person, online, mobile, and recurring payments). The Director partners closely with Revenue Cycle, Patient Financial Services, IT, Information Security, Compliance/Privacy, Supply Chain, and Operations to deliver a secure, reliable, and cost-effective acceptance ecosystem—optimizing the patient payment experience while minimizing risk, ensuring compliance, and improving cash flow.

Essential Job Functions

• Program Leadership & Governance: Own the enterprise merchant services program, including roadmap, policies/standards, and operating model across hospitals, clinics, and international locations. Establish and maintain governance for merchant account setup, device standards, processor/acquirer relationships, fee structures, chargeback/dispute handling, and exception management. Serve as the primary Treasury liaison for payment acceptance strategy, ensuring alignment with broader cash management and treasury priorities.
• Payment Acceptance Operations: Oversee day-to-day merchant operations, including onboarding new locations/merchant IDs, terminal and gateway provisioning, payment channel support, and incident/escalation management. Ensure seamless integration and uptime across systems such as EHR/PM platforms, patient portals, payment gateways, IVR/call center payments, and point-of-sale solutions. Works with RevCycle to maintain documented procedures and controls for settlements, reconciliation, refunds, voids, and adjustments—ensuring timely and accurate posting to GL and patient accounting systems.
• Financial Performance & Optimization: Analyze and optimize end-to-end costs of acceptance (interchange, assessments, processor/acquirer fees, gateway fees, device costs, and third-party tools). Assist the VP in pricing and contract negotiations; develop business cases for new capabilities (e.g., tokenization, network tokens, APMs, digital wallets, account updater). Establish KPIs and dashboards (authorization rates, decline reasons, chargeback ratios, fraud losses, refund cycle time, settlement timing, uptime, cost per transaction).
• Risk, Compliance, and Controls (Healthcare Environment): Partners closely with Information Security efforts to maintain compliance with applicable payment standards and internal controls (e.g., PCI DSS, data protection/privacy requirements, segmentation and secure payment flows). Partner with Information Security and Compliance to implement tokenization, encryption, secure key management, and vendor risk management practices. In partnership with RevCycle, oversee chargeback/dispute processes, fraud mitigation tools, and monitoring controls to reduce losses and operational risk.
• Vendor & Stakeholder Management: Manage relationships with acquirers, processors, payment gateways, POS vendors, device providers, and fraud/dispute platforms. Coordinate cross-functional stakeholders (Revenue Cycle, IT, Security, Compliance, Finance, Operations) to ensure successful implementations and adoption. Drive service-level expectations and performance reviews; resolve complex operational issues and ensure accountability.
• Projects & Continuous Improvement: Lead enterprise implementations and upgrades (new gateways, device refreshes, e-commerce enhancements, digital wallet rollouts, recurring payment improvements). Standardize and simplify merchant services processes across acquired facilities and newly opened locations. Promote a patient-friendly payment experience while balancing cost, risk, and compliance requirements.
• Team Leadership: Manage and develop a team responsible for merchant setup, support, reconciliation, dispute management, and vendor coordination (direct reports and/or matrix resources). Create a culture of customer service, ownership, continuous improvement, and strong controls. Provide training and communications to operational and clinical-site stakeholders regarding payment standards and procedures.

This document is not an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, skills, duties, requirements, or working conditions associated with the job. Employees may be required to perform other job-related duties as required by their supervisor, subject to reasonable accommodation.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business, Information Systems, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• 7+ years of progressive experience in merchant services, payment acceptance, treasury operations, revenue cycle payments, or closely related areas.
• 3+ years of people leadership or program leadership experience (direct and/or matrix management).
• Deep knowledge of card acceptance ecosystems: acquirer/processor models, interchange/fees, settlement, reconciliation, chargebacks/disputes, and payment gateways.
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional initiatives in complex, multi-site environments.
• Strong analytical skills; ability to model costs, evaluate contracts, and quantify ROI and operational impact.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to translate technical payment concepts for non-technical audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• CTP (Certified Treasury Professional), PMP, Lean/Six Sigma, PCI-related training.
• Experience in healthcare (provider, payer, or health services) and familiarity with patient payment workflows.
• Experience supporting both U.S. and international payment acceptance (multi-currency, local acquiring, regional payment methods).
• Working knowledge of PCI DSS requirements and secure payment architecture (tokenization, encryption, P2PE, hosted payment pages).
• Experience with major payment gateways/processors and EHR/PM/payment integrations.
• Experience working with AI (Artificial Intelligence) through large language models through AI engines such as Co-Pilot.

Benefits

• Competitive pay, incentives, referral bonuses and 403(b) with employer contributions (when eligible).
• Medical, dental, vision, prescription coverage, HSA/FSA options, life insurance, mental health resources and discounts.
• Paid time off, parental and FMLA leave, short- and long-term disability, backup care for children and elders.
• Tuition assistance, professional development and continuing education support.

Benefits may vary based on the market and employment status.