Director of Patient Experience

Overview

Essen Health Care is the largest privately held, multispecialty medical group in New York, providing high-quality, compassionate care to some of the state's most vulnerable and underserved residents.

Founded in 1999, we've grown from a single primary care office into a network of 50+ locations offering urgent care, primary care and specialty services, from women's health to endocrinology and psychiatry. We also provide nursing home support, care management, and in-home care through our Essen House Calls program. Guided by a Population Health model, our team of 500+ providers deliver care in-person, at home, or via telehealth, ensuring patients get the support they need when and where they need it.

We're looking for talented, motivated individuals to join our growing team. Whether you're a medical provider, administrator, or operations professional, there's a career here for you. Join us in making a real difference in the health of our community.

Job Summary

Every patient interaction shapes how our communities experience Essen. The Director of Patient Experience is a strategic and hands-on leader who turns that belief into results across Essen and its subsidiaries and affiliates, from the NPS scores and online reviews that reflect our reputation to the phone calls that turn a frustrated patient into a loyal one.


Partnering closely with the Vice President, the Director owns the execution of our patient experience strategy and helps shape it as results come in. This leader builds and leads a growing Patient Experience team, develops the dashboards and reporting that show leaders where to act, and stewards some of our most sensitive work, including the Incident program. Working with Compliance, Legal, and operational leaders, the Director refines the policies and standard operating procedures that guide how we care for patients.


This role is for someone energized by both the data and the human side of healthcare, equally comfortable presenting trends to senior leaders and calling a patient to make things right.


Responsibilities

Leadership & Strategy Execution

• Partner with the Vice President to shape and refine the patient experience strategy, then own its execution across every care site.
  • Build and lead a growing Patient Experience team, setting clear goals, coaching for performance, and developing future patient experience leaders.
  • Bring a fresh eye to patient experience policies and SOPs, refining them with Compliance, Legal, and operational leaders so they work in practice, not just on paper.
  • Manage relationships with patient experience vendors, including survey and online reputation platforms, holding partners accountable for service levels and results.

Online Reputation, NPS & Reporting

• Own Essen's online reputation by overseeing the team that monitors and responds to reviews, tracking ratings across platforms, and keeping leaders across the organization informed on where we stand and where we need to improve.
  • Drive NPS and CG-CAHPS performance by spotting trends early and translating results into site- and department-level action.
  • Develop and maintain dashboards and reporting covering NPS, CG-CAHPS, grievance, complaint, and online review data, partnering with Quality, Compliance, Analytics, and Informatics to connect experience data to broader performance goals.

Incident Program

• Lead the Incident program, ensuring every incident is documented, reviewed, and handled consistently, fairly, and with care for both patients and staff, and partner with Compliance, Legal, and operational leaders to refine the policies that support it.
  • Guide the rare cases that may lead to a change in the patient relationship, ensuring each decision is thoughtful, well documented, and compliant with policy and regulatory requirements.

Patient Advocacy & Service Recovery

• Oversee grievance and complaint management, ensuring timely, compliant resolution in line with CMS, Joint Commission, and health plan requirements, and lead sensitive or high-risk escalations in partnership with Compliance, Legal, and clinical leadership.
  • On specialized cases, engage directly with patients and families, and step in to support the team during high-volume periods, helping resolve concerns and rebuild trust.
  • Equip frontline staff with service recovery tools and practices that let them make things right in the moment.

Training & Culture Development

• Deliver presentations and trainings across the organization, including New Joiner Orientation, so every team member understands Essen's patient experience standards from day one.
  • Partner with Learning & Development and People & Culture to shape patient experience training on service excellence, empathy, communication, de-escalation, and service recovery, and to build experience standards into onboarding and ongoing development.
  • Conduct site observations using established standards, and turn findings into practical coaching that helps managers and frontline leaders own the patient experience within their teams.
  • Be a highly visible leader across care sites, modeling empathy, respect, and inclusivity, and champion recognition programs that celebrate staff excellence and positive patient feedback.

Change Management & System Improvement

• Look beyond individual feedback entries to identify systemic barriers, and lead cross-functional initiatives that improve patient access, communication, care coordination, and front-end operations.
  • Use structured change-management methods to drive lasting adoption of new processes, technologies, and service standards.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Build trusted partnerships with senior executives, Medical Directors, Nursing Leadership, and operational teams, advising on patient-centered priorities and bringing the patient's voice to committees and workgroups.
  • Represent Essen in professional networks, collaboratives, community forums, and industry associations.

Competencies

• Patient-Centered Focus & Drives Results: Keeps patients and families at the center of every decision and consistently achieves measurable improvement against experience goals.

• Instills Trust & Candor: Earns the confidence of patients, staff, and leaders through honesty and follow-through, and raises difficult issues directly, including with senior leaders, when the patient experience is at risk.

• Ensures Accountability & Builds Effective Teams: Holds self and others accountable for commitments and service standards while building a strong, collaborative team as it grows.

• Collaborates & Communicates Effectively: Builds partnerships across clinical, operational, and administrative teams, and delivers clear, tailored messages to audiences ranging from frontline staff to executives.

• Vision, Strategic Mindset & Decision Quality: Connects the team's daily work to Essen's patient experience vision, turns strategy into practical action, and makes timely, well-reasoned decisions informed by data, regulatory requirements, and stakeholder input.

• Being Resilient & Manages Ambiguity: Stays composed in emotionally charged situations, recovers quickly from setbacks, and operates effectively when priorities shift or the path forward is unclear.

• Values Differences & Self-Development: Respects the diverse perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds of patients and staff, and actively seeks feedback and new learning to keep growing.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Healthcare Administration, Nursing, Business, or related field

• Minimum 7 years of progressive experience in patient experience, patient relations, or healthcare operations

• Minimum 3 years of people management experience in a healthcare setting

• Demonstrated success leading culture change and organization-wide improvement initiatives

• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to influence and motivate diverse stakeholders, including senior leaders

• Expertise in service excellence, conflict resolution, de-escalation, and service recovery

• Strong data analysis, dashboard development, and reporting capabilities

• Change management and project leadership skills

• Working knowledge of CMS, Joint Commission, and health plan grievance requirements

• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite

Preferred

• Master's degree (MHA, MPH, MBA, or related)

• Certified Patient Experience Professional (CPXP)

• Experience with NPS programs, CAHPS surveys (e.g., CG-CAHPS), and survey platforms such as Press Ganey or Qualtrics

• Experience with online reputation management platforms

• Knowledge of EHR systems (ECW)

• Experience managing vendor relationships

• Experience in a multi-site healthcare organization; a clinical background is not required

Success in This Role


Success in this role starts with ownership. The successful Director moves easily between strategy and day-to-day work, whether that means presenting trends to senior leadership, calling a patient to resolve a concern, or working through a sensitive patient situation with Compliance and Legal.


It also takes curiosity and a genuine commitment to understanding our patients, our people, and our operations. The ideal candidate listens first, builds trust with leaders and frontline teams, and then acts decisively to make things better.


Success will show up in rising NPS and CG-CAHPS results, stronger online ratings, and incidents handled consistently and fairly. Just as importantly, it will show up in more direct ways for patients to be heard, both at the front lines and with the Patient Experience team, so they never feel they need to look for an advocate outside of Essen. As those channels grow, grievances decrease, patient input leads to real improvements in our services, and every team member sees the patient experience as part of their job.


Equal Opportunity Employer

Essen Health care is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and we seek candidates who desire to work in and serve an ethnically diverse population.