Director, Clinical Operations

Lighthouse Guild
250 W 64th St
New York, NY 10023, USA

Description

Lighthouse Guild is the leading not-for-profit healthcare organization dedicated to addressing and preventing vision loss. Our mission is to provide exceptional services that inspire people who are visually impaired to attain their goals. We provide coordinated care in eye health, vision rehabilitation, behavioral health, and related services. Our Diagnostic & Treatment Center and Behavioral Health Center is seeking a Director, Clinical Operations to work closely with the Medical Director, vision care and behavioral health clinical leaders, and administrative leadership, to ensure that services are accessible, coordinated, efficient, and responsive to the needs of the communities served.

Position Summary:

The Director of Health Services provides operational, strategic, and administrative leadership for the separately licensed OMH Article 31 Mental Health Treatment and Rehabilitative Services (MHOTRS) Clinic and DOH Article 28 Diagnostic and Treatment Center (DTC), as well as Low Vision and Optical Dispensary divisions. This position is responsible for patient access and experience, care coordination, staffing, operational performance and implementation of quality and safety measures. The Director ensures care coordination and multidisciplinary integration, and regulatory compliance with the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) and Office of Mental Health (OMH).

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in healthcare administration, nursing, public health, business administration, or a related field. Current New York State professional clinical license preferred.


• Progressive leadership and healthcare operations experience in a regulated outpatient facility, diagnostic and treatment center or community health center (Article 28 or FQHC preferred.)


• Demonstrated ability to manage staffing, budgets, patient access, quality improvement, and organizational change.


• Strong working knowledge of healthcare privacy, patient safety, and regulatory compliance practices.


• Experience using electronic health records, scheduling systems, and operational reports. Knowledge of current available technology used to improve clinical workflow, operational efficiency and patient experience, with ability to integrate new and emerging technology into clinical practice.


• Understanding of Medicaid, Medicare, Managed care, and community-based healthcare delivery and experience serving diverse New York City communities. Demonstrated success in performance management and process improvement. Strong foundational knowledge of outpatient clinic structures, including the operational workflows unique to medical and behavioral health practitioners, and optometrists.


• Success in optimizing revenue cycle management.


• Experience managing complex budgets, electronic data systems, and strategic market growth.


• Foundational understanding of the unique psychosocial, medical, and accessibility needs of individuals who are blind, living with low vision or other disabilities.


• Strong communication, analytical, conflict resolution, and team leadership skills.

Clinical Operations, Patient Access and Experience:

• Provide daily oversight for all clinical operations: Medical and Behavioral Health, Optometry, Occupational Therapy and Optical Dispensary services.


• Manage scheduling, registration, patient flow, and follow-up workflows to improve appointment availability and continuity of care.


• Manage relationships with referral sources to ensure timely handling of all inbound referrals and appropriate feedback to referral sources to maximize patient volume and provision of care.


• Establish and ensure consistent procedures for intake, clinical handoffs, diagnostic testing, results tracking, and referral completion.


• Provide oversight, guidance, and consultation to a multidisciplinary team of therapists, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatric staff.


• Function as the primary point of contact for NYSDOH and OMH site visits, certification renewals, and regulatory audits.


• Foster a collaborative, patient-centered "whole-health" model that optimizes cross-departmental referrals and communication. Address patient complaints and service concerns, identify recurring issues, and implement improvements.


• Supervise and support professional staff from various health and behavioral health disciplines, and secretarial/administrative support staff.


• Manage clinical and administrative workflows, including integrated Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems, scheduling, and staff productivity tracking.


• Partner with the designated Medical Director, Manager of Behavioral Health, Chief Psychiatrist and Optometric Lead to ensure clinical quality, patient satisfaction, and service coordination.


• Oversee crisis intervention policies and procedures and cover after hours patient crisis calls when clinic manager is not available.


• Lead operational planning for service expansion, new programs, and changes in patient demand.

Quality, Safety, and Compliance:

• Partner with clinical and compliance leadership to implement applicable New York State Department of Health requirements, including Article 28 requirements where applicable, and other requirements associated with the center’s licenses and services.


• Establish clear expectations for service quality, teamwork, productivity, and accountability.


• Maintain operational policies and procedures supporting patient rights, confidentiality, infection prevention, emergency preparedness, and safe care delivery.


• Coordinate survey readiness, operational audits, corrective action plans, and follow-up.


• Support incident reporting, complaint review, and quality improvement activities.


• Coordinate operational readiness for medical emergencies and behavioral health crises under approved clinical protocols.


• Work with credentialing personnel and clinical leaders to verify that required licenses, credentials, and competencies remain current.

Financial and Performance Management:

• Work with billing and finance department to ensure compliance with all aspects of coding for evaluation and management (E&M), behavioral health interventions, and optometric services.


• Oversee the separate clinic's operating budgets (Health and Behavioral Health centers, Optical Dispensary), maximizing revenue cycle efficiency across varying billing structures (including Medicaid APG/threshold visits, Medicare, and commercial insurance plans).


• Monitor key financial performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure clinical services achieve fiscal and strategic metrics


• Develop and monitor operating budgets, staffing expenses, supply costs, and resource utilization.


• Track appointment access, patient volume, wait times, missed appointments, referral completion, patient satisfaction, and other agreed performance measures.


• Use data to identify operational problems, set improvement priorities, and evaluate results. Implement process improvement initiatives to improve areas of need.


• Collaborate with billing and revenue cycle teams to improve registration accuracy, eligibility verification, authorization workflows, and timely documentation.


• Implement performance improvement measures in response to identified areas for improvement and present performance reports and recommendations to organizational leadership.

Measures of Success:

Success will be evaluated through improvements in patient access, efficient patient flow, referral completion, patient experience, staff retention, revenue cycle management and budget performance, and timely completion of quality and compliance initiatives.

We offer a very competitive salary and benefit package. Convenient Upper West Side location.

Equal Opportunity Employer
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