Chief Medical Officer

Job Description

Job Description

Description:

CloseKnit, is one of Mid-Atlantic's largest not-for-profit healthcare organizations, that operates 40+ clinic locations across Maryland, Washington DC, and Northern Virginia. CloseKnit combines welcoming neighborhood clinics with seamless virtual care to deliver primary care, same-day sick visits, behavioral health, nutrition counseling, and new parent support — all designed around how patients actually live.

CloseKnit is seeking an accomplished clinical executive to serve as its Chief Medical Officer, responsible for care quality, safety, provider performance, and clinical governance. The CMO serves as the organization’s primary clinical voice, unifying standards, workflows, culture, and leadership. The role partners with the CloseKnit executive team on provider compensation, clinical strategy, value-based care expansion, and workforce planning. Overall, the CMO balances clinical excellence, operational sustainability, provider engagement, and strong performance in value-based care. 

Key Responsibilities

Enterprise Clinical Leadership and Integration

• Foster the development of a unified medical group that is anchored by consistent standards, workflows, documentation expectations and a culture of clinical excellence.
• Partner with executive team on clinical strategy, growth initiatives, payer strategy, value-based care, and enterprise performance improvement.
• Establish and chair clinical governance forums (i.e. Provider Advisory).
• Build and maintain physician leadership forums for communication, shared decision-making, and problem resolution.
• Drive reduction of unnecessary clinical variation and support alignment during organizational change.
• Lead the strategy development for value-based care and operationalize and execute the strategy across the enterprise. 
• Champion key initiatives to improve clinical quality, innovation and efficiency. Lead complex change management through effective leadership and communication to provider stakeholders.
• Define quality and patient safety strategy, metrics, review cadence, and escalation thresholds.
• Oversee the performance of Value-Based Care & Population Health and Quality teams.
• Support ACO, Medicare Advantage, MSSP, HEDIS, Star Ratings, and other risk-based contract strategies as applicable.

Provider Leadership, Performance and Workforce Development

• Set enterprise expectations for documentation, coding accuracy, quality outcomes, patient experience, professionalism, and engagement.
• Oversee Regional Medical Directors and ensure effective supervision of clinical leadership across all sites.
• Lead provider onboarding, mentorship, leadership development, CME governance, performance evaluation, peer review, remediation, recruitment, retention, and succession planning.
• Provide clinical inputs to compensation governance, provider performance and workforce planning.

Operations Access and Care Delivery

• Provide executive clinical leadership over access, scheduling, coverage models, continuity planning, and provider capacity in conjunction with operational leadership.
• Partner with operations to standardize workflows across in-person and virtual care platforms and ensure sustainable primary care delivery.
• Approve clinical workflow changes, pilots, and enterprise policies that affect patient flow, care coordination, and population health initiatives.

Conflict Resolution, Issue Escalation and Regulatory Liaison

• Own escalation pathways and adjudication standards for clinical, compliance, safety, and personnel issues.
• Partner with HR, Compliance, Risk, and Legal on provider performance, conduct, and regulatory matters.
• Lead responses to major clinical incidents, regulatory inquiries, and external communications when required.

Data Technology and Innovation

• Collaborate with IT and Analytics to optimize the EHR, clinical decision support, telemedicine, and reporting systems.
• Leverage data to drive quality improvement, clinical decision support, and enterprise reporting.
• Use data and analytics to balance quality, access, provider engagement, patient experience, and financial sustainability.
• Champion evidence-based practice, research, and clinical innovation

Other Duties

• The CMO will remain clinically active and is expected to be clinically active and have a clinical allocation of 10-20%. Remaining clinically active is critically important to lead and drive change through the enterprise.
• Perform additional responsibilities as assigned consistent with organizational governance and regulatory requirements.

Required

• MD or DO degree from an accredited institution.
• Active, unrestricted medical license appropriate to jurisdictions served.
• Board certification in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, or relevant primary care specialty.
• Candidates must live in or be willing to relocate to the DMV area to support patient needs and operational coverage. 
• Minimum 10 years clinical practice and 5–10 years progressive physician leadership or executive experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading multi-site ambulatory, primary care, managed care, or integrated delivery organizations.
• Proven expertise in clinical governance, quality and safety, risk management, provider performance, and value-based care.
• Strong communication, change management, stakeholder engagement, and executive presence.  

Preferred

• Experience integrating acquired or merged physician groups.
• Experience with ACOs, Medicare Advantage, MSSP, HEDIS, Star Ratings, or risk contracts.
• Advanced degree or executive training such as MBA, MPH, MHA, or MMM.