Fractional Chief Medical Officer (CMO)

Fractional Chief Medical Officer (CMO)

Location: Remote / Flexible

About Us:

Ladder Health is a virtual-first pediatric developmental care company, developed and tested at Boston Children’s Hospital. We partner with pediatricians, health systems, and community organizations to deliver expert PT, OT, SLP, and feeding therapy for young children through an innovative caregiver-mediated model that expands access while improving outcomes. As we continue to scale nationally, we are seeking a physician leader who can help shape both our clinical strategy and commercial growth.

The Opportunity:

Ladder Health is looking for a physician executive who will work directly with the CEO to strengthen enterprise and health system partnerships, expand physician relationships, generate clinical evidence, and help shape the future of pediatric developmental care. This is not a traditional internal clinical operations role. We’re seeking an externally oriented physician leader who enjoys building relationships, opening doors, developing physician champions, and helping health systems adopt innovative models of care. You’ll help Ladder Health strengthen credibility with physicians, health systems, academic leaders, payers, and strategic partners while guiding our long-term evolution from fee-for-service toward value-based pediatric care. This fractional position (5-10 hours/week) is designed with a clear pathway toward a full-time Chief Medical Officer role as the company continues to scale.

Key Responsibilities:

Commercial Growth & Strategic Partnerships (Primary Focus)

• Serve as the physician face of Ladder Health, building trusted relationships with health systems, childhood hospitals, physician leaders, payers, and strategic partners
• Partner directly with the CEO to advance enterprise partnerships, participating in strategic meetings where physician-to-physician credibility accelerates commercial discussions and decision-making
• Build relationships with CMOs, pediatric department chairs, medical directors, physician executives, and payer leaders while advising on clinical strategy, reimbursement, medical necessity, and care delivery
• Represent Ladder Health at regional and national conferences while leading clinical diligence discussions for prospective partners around quality, outcomes, evidence, workflow, and standards of care

Clinical Leadership & Market Development

• Partner across Clinical, Operations, and Product to ensure exceptional clinical quality, measurable outcomes, and scalable quality reporting
• Build and lead Ladder Health’s Clinical Advisory Board while translating clinical evidence into compelling stories that strengthen enterprise partnerships, payer discussions, publications, and commercialization
• Develop regional physician champion networks by identifying respected pediatricians, developmental pediatricians, neonatologists, family physicians, and health system leaders who can advocate for Ladder Health and accelerate local market expansion through peer-to-peer engagement
• Serve as a strategic clinical advisor across the organization, helping ensure customer insights continuously inform commercialization, product strategy, and clinical excellence

Evidence Generation & Future Care Models

• Lead Ladder Health’s evidence-generation strategy through clinical outcomes research, implementation science, peer-reviewed publications, and real-world evidence demonstrating the value of caregiver-mediated developmental care
• Help define the clinical strategy, quality metrics, utilization measures, and outcomes data needed to support value-based care, alternative payment models, and future reimbursement innovation
• Develop relationships with academic institutions, childhood hospitals, Medicaid leaders, payers, and other strategic organizations to advance research collaborations and future commercialization opportunities
• Identify emerging opportunities across pediatric digital health, integrated care delivery, reimbursement innovation, and population health that strengthen Ladder Health’s long-term strategy

Product & Clinical Strategy

• Provide physician leadership for product strategy, ensuring our platform reflects the evolving needs of patients, families, providers, health systems, and payers
• Partner closely with Product, Technology and Engineering teams to design clinically sound workflows while supporting future quality measurement, outcomes reporting, and commercialization
• Advise executive leadership on emerging policy, regulatory, and market trends influencing pediatric developmental care

Success will be measured by your ability to:

• Strengthen enterprise partnerships and physician credibility
• Build a nationally respected Clinical Advisory Board and physician champion network
• Advance meaningful clinical evidence supporting Ladder Health’s model
• Help position Ladder Health for future value-based partnerships and reimbursement innovation
• Establish Ladder Health as the preferred pediatric developmental partner for health systems nationwide

Qualifications:

Education:

• MD with an active, unrestricted medical license
• Board certification in Pediatrics
• Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics experience is highly valued but not required

Experience & Profile:

We’re seeking an experienced physician leader with approximately 10+ years of progressive clinical and leadership experience, ideally spanning health systems, academic medicine, pediatric innovation, digital health, healthcare transformation, or population health. The strongest candidates will demonstrate:

• Success building trusted relationships with physician executives, health systems, childhood hospitals, academic medical centers, or strategic healthcare organizations
• Experience supporting healthcare commercialization, enterprise partnerships, innovation, or business development
• Familiarity with value-based care, digital health, implementation science, clinical research, or healthcare transformation
• Thought leadership through publications, research collaborations, conference presentations, or national professional organizations
• Comfort operating within an entrepreneurial, venture-backed environment while helping build new models of pediatric care

Skills:

• Executive presence with exceptional communication and relationship-building skills
• Ability to translate clinical evidence into compelling value for health systems, physicians, payers, and strategic partners
• Collaborative leadership across clinical, operational, commercial, and executive teams
• Strategic mindset with a passion for building innovative models of care

Time Commitment:

Approximately 5-10 hours per week, focused on high-leverage strategic partnerships, physician engagement, and executive collaboration

Why Join Ladder Health?

• Build the Future: Help define how pediatric developmental care is delivered, measured, and reimbursed over the next decade
• Commercial Impact: Play a central role in shaping enterprise partnerships, physician engagement, and national growth
• Executive Pathway: Clear opportunity to transition into a full-time Chief Medical Officer role as Ladder Health scales
• Meaningful Equity: Competitive equity opportunity aligned with long-term company growth
• Mission: Expand access to expert developmental care for thousands of children and families nationwide

Equal Opportunity Statement:

Ladder Health is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.