Director OF Operations

JOB SUMMARY The Director of Practice Operations provides strategic and operational leadership for MAHEC's ambulatory clinical practices, ensuring the delivery of high-quality, patient-centered care while advancing the organization's clinical, educational, and financial objectives. This position oversees practice operations across all clinic locations and partners closely with service line leaders, department chairs, program directors, faculty, and administrative leaders to optimize access, quality, patient experience, workforce engagement, and financial performance. The Director is responsible for developing and implementing operational strategies that promote efficiency, standardization, continuous improvement, regulatory compliance, and sustainable growth across the ambulatory enterprise. This position plays a key role in ensuring clinical operations effectively support MAHEC's academic mission while maintaining exceptional patient care and service excellence. SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES Provide leadership and oversight for day-to-day operations of all MAHEC ambulatory clinics. Develop, implement, and monitor operational strategies, policies, and workflows that improve efficiency, standardization, and patient outcomes. Collaborate with service line leadership to identify opportunities for growth, expansion, and operational innovation. Develop and manage annual operating budgets in partnership with finance, service line leaders, and department chairs. Monitor productivity, revenue, expense performance, and operational metrics to identify opportunities for improvement. Partner with revenue cycle leadership to optimize practice performance, reimbursement, patient collections, and financial sustainability. Develop and implement action plans to address operational performance gaps and achieve organizational targets. Establish and monitor key performance indicators related to access, patient satisfaction, operational efficiency, and quality outcomes. Ensure patients experience consistent, timely, and high-quality care across all practice locations. Partner with residency and educational leadership to ensure clinic operations effectively support learner education and training. Ensure compliance with all applicable federal, state, and accrediting agency requirements including OSHA, laboratory, pharmacy, infection prevention, and other regulatory standards. Collaborate with quality and clinical leaders to improve clinical quality outcomes, patient safety, and operational reliability. Promote a culture of accountability, safety, continuous learning, and service excellence. Promote employee engagement, professional development, succession planning, and leadership development. Collaborate with talent management and clinical leadership to address workforce planning and staffing needs. Participate in strategic planning, facility planning, operational readiness, and practice growth initiatives. Serve as an operational liaison between administrative leaders, service line leaders, department chairs, faculty, providers, and support departments. KEY COMPETENCIES Communication Skills Effectively and respectably communicate with other individuals, whether it be a colleague, patient, or patient’s family member and appropriately enumerate information in a manner easily understood by all parties. We do this to foster a culture of understanding between all parties, especially in complex and difficult situations, to ultimately provide the best care possible to our patients and their families. Decision Making Ability to make the most appropriate decision in a given situation and then taking the next steps to ensure appropriate and timely completion. This requires conflict resolution skills, critical thinking skills, confidence in your ability to make the right decision in most situations. This also includes ability to prioritize your workday appropriately to ensure the most important tasks are completed on time. HealthCare Knowledge Having the drive to keep yourself abreast and up to date on the new breakthroughs in your area of expertise and communicating them to the rest of the team, as appropriate. This also includes keeping up with your licensure and yearly training requirements within your area expertise along with MAHEC’s organizational training. Finally, the ability to apply the depth of knowledge maintained and gained through this process in real life scenarios as appropriate. Interpersonal Skills Showing the ability to meet difficult situations with grace, professionalism, and understanding. Within your area of expertise, showing respect and showing empathy where appropriate with your colleagues, patients, and their family at all times, even when its most difficult to do so. This is done, in part, by effective listening, being your authentic self, showing responsibility and dependability, and being patient with others. Organizational Values Adherence to MAHEC’s founding principles and incorporating them every day. This includes, among others, having integrity and accountability, reverence for other cultures and equitable practices, ability to manage change, and displaying a clear understanding of organizational dynamics. Doing these things creates a culture where people want to do the best for each other and gives personal ownership towards the goal of helping people in their time of need. Problem Solving Having an analytical mind and ability to work autonomously to solve complex problems that may arise. The wherewithal to think logically through a difficult problem and come to an appropriate resolution for a given issue. This helps to drive continuous improvement by thinking through where we can improve in a novel way. Measures success by understanding where we are currently and where we want to go and then applying those new ideas to affect positive change. SPECIFIED SKILLS Computer Excellent skills in Microsoft Office including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and database applications required. Foreign Language Spanish speaking skills preferred. SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES Supervises the Clinic Practice Administrators. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS Bachelor's degree in Healthcare Administration, Business Administration, Nursing, Public Health, or related field. Seven to ten years of progressive healthcare operations leadership experience. Minimum of five years leading managers or multi-site operations. Experience managing operational and financial performance of ambulatory practices. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS Master's degree (MHA, MBA, MPH, MSN). Academic medical group experience. Residency training environment experience. Lean, Six Sigma, or similar quality improvement training. SCHEDULE Regular attendance on-site is an essential function of this position. Typical business hours are Monday – Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm (or flexed to best meet the needs of the clients and/or the Division); 40 hours per workweek; weekend, holiday, or evening coverage is occasionally required. Work hours will need to be flexible in order to respond to special work assignments, or evening activities, as requested by the team leader. REWARDS AND BENEFITS At MAHEC, we strive to equip all team members with Total Rewards (pay + benefits) to honor their service, support their health, manage their financial security, build their career, and thrive. MAHEC is a qualifying employer for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program. Employees who meet federal requirements may be eligible to have remaining student loan balances forgiven after 10 years of qualifying payments while working full-time at MAHEC. LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE All MAHEC employees and learners will be required to receive the Flu vaccine or have an approved exemption. MAHEC does not provide employment-based US visa sponsorship, now or in the future. All new employees must provide valid, original I-9 documents on their first day of work. EMPLOYER BRANDING Thank you for your interest in employment with Mountain Area Health Education Center in Asheville, NC, where we are committed to improving health in western North Carolina through innovative health professions education and compassionate healthcare. MAHEC was established in 1974 to improve training and retention of healthcare professionals across our region. We are dedicated to excellence in clinical care, health professions education, and innovative practices that can be replicated nationally. The largest of the nine state AHEC's, MAHEC serves NC's 16 westernmost counties to address national and state concerns with the supply, retention, and quality of health professionals especially in rural areas. Equal Opportunity Employer. #J-18808-Ljbffr