Director of Palliative Behavioral Health Integration

Key Responsibilities

• Design and launch a behavioral health program integrated within palliative care for older adults with serious illnesses.
• Build the clinical and operational framework for palliative-based behavioral health across SNFs and related care settings.
• Define patient eligibility, referral pathways, screening protocols, triage processes, visit cadence, treatment pathways, discharge criteria, and escalation workflows.
• Develop clinical protocols for common behavioral health needs in serious illness populations including depression, anxiety, grief, anticipatory grief, caregiver stress, demoralization, behavioral symptoms, adjustment to illness, and crisis identification.
• Partner closely with palliative care physicians, APPs, social workers, and operational leadership to embed behavioral health into interdisciplinary care planning and workflows.
• Create workflows supporting SNF-based care, post-discharge follow-up, and telehealth continuity for appropriate patients.
• Hire, train, supervise, and mentor behavioral health clinicians and support staff.
• Develop documentation standards, note templates, care coordination workflows, communication protocols, and quality assurance processes.
• Establish measurable program metrics including access, referral conversion, clinician productivity, documentation quality, patient and family experience, and clinical outcomes.
• Collaborate with clinical leadership, finance, compliance, billing, analytics, and facility partners to ensure program quality and operational success.
• Maintain a limited clinical caseload during launch and support management of complex or escalated patient situations.
• Serve as the operational and clinical leader for behavioral health program development, quality improvement, training, and implementation.

Required Qualifications

• Independent clinical licensure required, with strong preference for LCSW or licensed psychologist.
• Significant clinical experience working with older adults, medically complex patients, serious illness populations, or related behavioral health populations.
• Leadership experience in program development, clinical operations, service-line management, or interdisciplinary team oversight.
• Demonstrated ability to build workflows, protocols, staffing models, and quality processes.
• Experience working in palliative care, hospice, SNFs, post-acute care, geriatrics, or related settings.
• Strong clinical judgment related to risk assessment, escalation management, family dynamics, caregiver distress, and the overlap between medical and behavioral symptoms in serious illness.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with physicians, APPs, nurses, social workers, facility staff, and operational teams.