Director of Outpatient Behavioral Health

Position Summary:   Provides supervision and support to Outpatient staff 

Educational Requirements:   Master’s Degree, Licensed, Certified Clinical Supervisor or a Master’s in Business Administration with at least 5 years’ experience in Behavioral Healthcare

Special Skills:   At least 5 years supervisory experience, ability to manage multiple service locations, proven leadership skills in behavioral healthcare, demonstrates a depth of knowledge in Utilization and Office Management. Strong people skills to provide excellent internal and external customer service; understanding of both clinical services and outpatient business operations.

Position Duties

1.    To encourage client satisfaction through value-based care, repeat business, choosing First Step as a provider of choice, compliance with treatment program, payment for service, repeat business, and growth of client referrals – Provide excellence in customer service.

2.    Help staff to be effective and efficient – Collegiality, coordination of staff caseloads, coordination of distribution of cases, monitoring authorizations, monitoring referrals, monitoring and training on third-party payer requirements. Interview and select candidates for positions in the department. Manage the work of graduate students working in the department. 

3.    To encourage business growth through new referrals and new referral development -- Convey professionalism; be highly proactive, organized, and systematic in developing resources. 

4.    To develop and retain qualified staff – Manage productivity of staff and quality of services, recommend changes and projects to improve and increase the department. 

5.    Responsibility for managing, organizing, and completing a task include setting up a system for its completion through delegation to office or outpatient staff. 

6.    Recording new outpatient referrals as the calls come in. Check insurance status of referrals. Refer cases who are not appropriate for First Step to the appropriate stakeholder.

7.    Assess referrals which cannot be seen by staff rapidly, managing a triage process to avoid a waiting list. Assess for child, parents, family, mental health issues, and mental health/substance misuse and co-occurring disorders history or delegate to staff. 

8.    Procure paperwork on cases as necessary to get authorization, send paperwork to referral source or family on new cases. 

9.    Manage scheduling of new clients or delegate to the appropriate staff. 

10.    Help develop orientation, training, and education of new and existing staff, including orientation to our policies and forms. Develop and maintain a therapeutic alliance between new cases and First Step of Sarasota.

11.    Establish and cement relationships with referral sources. Efficient and complete use of our clinical space

12.    Direct staff meetings and keep staff apprised of new developments. Maintain awareness of the case load needs of all outpatient therapists. Assess staff satisfaction. Assign cases. Maintain updated resumes of staff and monitor staff files for updated credentials. Maintain records of daily, weekly, monthly, annual productivity per staff member by hours billed. 

13.    Report to Senior Leadership on staff issues. Screen, interview, and select employees. Help with recruitment, including physicians, APRN’s, clinicians, psychologists, and other staff. 

14.    Manage outpatient staff charts for compliance with standards. Coordinate space allocation for outpatient staff. Train new staff on program and on First Step orientation. 

15.    Organize and monitor peer staffing and consultation. Problem solve staff problems with performance, needs, and cases. Help staff obtain Medicaid provider numbers and licenses, as needed, in collaboration with Utilization Management Team. 

16.    Identify problems which are systemic and need to be addressed systemically, and individual staff problems which need to be addressed individually with staff, such as diagnostic skill, fidelity to treatment protocols, documentation, etc., and recommend or complete plans, such as in-service training and individual counseling, to ameliorate problems. 

17.    Maintain statistics on the activities of the department, recommend strategies for improvement in performance, productivity, and profitability. Continuous quality improvement for outpatient services through development of procedures, manuals, training materials, participation in trainings, best practices, using staff and the research literature as resources. Recommend in-service topics. Maintain awareness of key literature in developing, evidence-based treatments. Assist in development of outcome and satisfaction measures and collecting data. Work with graduate students on assessments, paperwork, and caseload

18.    Ensure compliance through participation in program audits, credentialing, record reviews and process improvement. Work effectively with internal and external stakeholders.