Business Development Specialist

Job Description

Job Description

Help More Children and Families Access the Care They Need

We are seeking an accomplished, relationship-driven Business Development Specialist to expand our healthcare referral network and generate sustainable patient referrals throughout an assigned territory.

This is not a traditional community-marketing position. The primary focus is developing and nurturing professional referral relationships with pediatricians, healthcare providers, hospitals, health systems, multi-location practices, diagnostic professionals, and other organizations serving children and families.

The ideal candidate has at least five years of healthcare business development experience—and a demonstrated history of turning trusted professional relationships into qualified patient referrals. Experience within pediatric, children’s health, behavioral health, developmental health, or a closely related field is strongly preferred.

• Build, manage, and grow a strategic network of professional referral sources throughout your territory.

• Develop relationships with pediatricians, hospitals, health systems, multi-location practices, diagnostic providers, therapists, schools, and other professionals serving children and families.

• Identify new referral opportunities and create territory-specific plans for developing them.

• Conduct purposeful in-person and virtual meetings with prospective and existing referral partners.

• Educate referral sources about our services, eligibility requirements, intake process, locations, and appropriate referral pathways.

• Maintain consistent follow-up with referral partners to strengthen relationships and encourage continued referral activity.

• Reengage inactive referral sources and identify opportunities to expand high-performing relationships across departments or locations.

• Build relationships with decision-makers, clinical leaders, referral coordinators, and other professionals who influence patient access.

• Generate qualified patient referrals that align with the organization’s services and capacity.

• Accurately document every referral, referral source, interaction, and follow-up activity in the organization’s designated systems.

• Monitor referred patients throughout the intake and authorization process.

• Partner closely with the internal Intake and Authorizations teams to identify barriers, support communication, and help prevent referred families from falling through the cracks.

• Keep referral partners appropriately informed while protecting patient privacy and following all HIPAA and organizational requirements.

• Analyze referral activity and conversion patterns to understand which relationships and outreach strategies produce meaningful results.

• Maintain an accurate and actionable pipeline of referral opportunities.

Community engagement is an important—but secondary—part of this position.

• Coordinate or participate in approximately one targeted community or brand-awareness event each month .

• Plan or support one larger, higher-impact event each quarter .

• Select events based on their potential to reach families, strengthen professional relationships, or expand awareness within priority communities.

• Follow up with contacts and referral opportunities generated through each event.

• Evaluate event effectiveness based on relationship development, qualified leads, referrals, and other measurable outcomes—not attendance alone.

Success in this role will be measured through outcomes such as:

• Growth in qualified patient referrals

• New professional referral relationships established

• Increased referrals from existing partners

• Referral-source engagement and retention

• Referral-to-intake and intake-to-service conversion trends

• Timely, accurate documentation and follow-up

• Effective management of referred patients throughout intake

• Quality and impact of monthly and quarterly outreach events

• Consistent execution of an organized territory-development plan

• At least five years of healthcare business development, physician relations, provider outreach, referral development, or healthcare networking experience

• Documented success generating patient referrals , not solely general brand awareness, product sales, fundraising, or event attendance

• Experience developing professional relationships with healthcare providers, hospitals, health systems, multi-location practices, or other established referral networks

• A strong professional résumé demonstrating measurable business-development and referral-generation results

• Professional references who can speak to the candidate’s relationship-building ability, performance, reliability, and results

• Experience managing a territory, referral pipeline, outreach schedule, or book of professional relationships

• Strong written, verbal, presentation, and interpersonal communication skills

• Excellent organization, documentation, and follow-through

• Ability to work independently while remaining highly accountable to goals and reporting expectations

• Comfort using CRM, referral-tracking, or similar business-development systems

• Ability and willingness to travel regularly throughout the assigned territory

• Valid driver’s license and reliable transportation, where required for the territory

• Business development or referral-generation experience in pediatric or children’s healthcare

• Experience in behavioral health, developmental services, autism services, therapy, diagnostics, or another family-centered healthcare field

• Existing professional relationships within the assigned territory

• Experience working with pediatricians, hospital systems, diagnostic providers, specialists, therapists, schools, or multi-location healthcare practices

• Knowledge of healthcare intake, insurance authorization, and patient-access processes

• Experience using data to prioritize referral sources and improve conversion results

You may be an excellent fit if you:

• Understand that strong healthcare business development is built on trust, credibility, consistency, and follow-through

• Can point to specific examples of professional relationships that produced patient referrals

• Know how to move beyond introductions and develop long-term referral partnerships

• Take ownership of a referral after it is generated and remain engaged through the intake journey

• Are comfortable being measured on meaningful referral growth and patient-access outcomes

• Can represent the organization professionally with both senior healthcare leaders and families

• Balance strategic relationship development with disciplined documentation and pipeline management

• Are motivated by helping children and families connect with needed care

Applicants should submit:

• A current résumé detailing at least five years of relevant healthcare business development experience

• Examples of measurable patient-referral or territory-growth results

• A brief description of the provider types, healthcare networks, or referral channels they have developed

• Professional references, requested during the interview process