Chief Medical Director, Hospice Home Care

The Hospice Medical Director serves as the senior clinical executive for VNS Health Hospice. This physician leader provides strategic, operational, and clinical oversight for all medical aspects of hospice care. In partnership with senior leadership, the Medical Director plays a pivotal role in driving clinical strategy, advancing quality, supporting growth, and ensuring regulatory excellence.

This leader fosters a high-performing, accountable, and interdisciplinary culture that prioritizes timely action, clinical excellence, and continuous improvement. The Medical Director also represents VNS Health in key community, professional, and partner settings.

Medical Leadership & Supervision:
* Lead and develop VNS Health's hospice physician and nurse practitioner team.
* Oversee physician recruitment, onboarding, coaching, and ongoing professional development.
* Monitor and manage performance, licensure, and credentialing compliance.
* Establish a culture of urgency and high accountability through defined operating rhythms (e.g., clinical huddles, escalation processes, performance checkpoints).
* Promote a growth mindset across the medical team through continuous learning, coaching, and innovation adoption.

Clinical Oversight & Regulatory Compliance:
* Ensure timely and accurate completion of all documentation including CTIs, recertifications, face-to-face visits, and narratives in compliance with CMS Conditions of Participation.
* Provide consultative support across home, SNF, and inpatient hospice settings.
* Maintain oversight of patient eligibility, level of care, and appropriateness of hospice enrollment.
* Implement standardized clinical pathways for common hospice symptoms to improve consistency, quality, and efficiency.
* Lead denial prevention and documentation-improvement efforts to protect and enhance financial performance.

Interdisciplinary Team (IDT) Engagement:
* Facilitate robust IDT meetings to drive coordinated, person-centered care planning.
* Promote collaboration across clinical, psychosocial, and spiritual care team members.
* Streamline IDT processes to enhance efficiency, accelerate decision-making, and ensure timely action on patient needs and recertification requirements.

Pain & Symptom Management:
* Oversee individualized, evidence-based pain and symptom management practices.
* Mentor clinicians on pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches to end-of-life care.
* Ensure consistent, rapid clinical response to acute symptom needs, reinforcing standards for timeliness and escalation.

Education & Community Engagement:
* Serve as an educator for hospice staff, attending physicians, SNF/hospital partners, and the broader medical community.
* Represent VNS Health in professional forums, community lectures, and training events.
* Participate in CME activities and lead internal workshops on hospice care excellence.
* Engage referring providers and health system partners to expand understanding of hospice, strengthen relationships, and support growth through earlier identification and referral.

Strategic Planning & Program Growth:
* Collaborate with leadership to design and implement clinical strategies that support growth, workforce optimization, and population health initiatives.
* Contribute to new service lines and partnership development.
* Serve as a physician champion for referral conversion, partner engagement, and reduction of late referrals.
* Use clinical insight to identify barriers to growth and address them through process redesign, physician education, or operational changes.

Quality Improvement & Performance Metrics:
* Guide and support QAPI initiatives, including symptom management protocols and benchmarking.
* Use data to inform clinical excellence and innovation.
* Drive clinical, operational, and financial performance through a balanced scorecard and regular data review.
* Lead rapid-cycle improvement efforts focused on timeliness, avoidable hospitalizations, care variation, and resource utilization.

Operational Management:
* Oversee physician coverage models, on-call rotation, and delegation protocols.
* Maintain continuous physician availability for patient care needs, including after-hours consultation as needed.
* Provide medical direction and backup support for urgent/emergent patient issues.
* Partner with operations and finance to ensure appropriate use of medications, durable medical equipment (DME), and levels of care, supporting responsible resource stewardship.
* Collaborate with leadership to enhance operational efficiency, reduce delays in the referral-to-admission process, and support census stabilization and growth.

Quality Outcomes & Accountability:
* The Hospice Medical Director is responsible for advancing high quality, person centered care through data driven leadership and clear accountability for hospice quality performance measures. This includes ensuring clinical practices and documentation support excellence across all CMS publicly reported quality metrics.

Hospice Star Ratings -
* Drive improvement across all domains contributing to the Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP) Star Ratings.
* Ensure clinical consistency, timely documentation, and adherence to evidence based symptom management pathways.
* Partner with IDT leaders to implement focused interventions addressing identified gaps in performance.

HVLDL (Hospice Visits in the Last Days of Life) -
* Monitor and ensure timely RN and MSW visits during the last 3-7 days of life.
* Implement anticipatory care planning to reduce missed opportunities for supportive visits.
* Lead after hours and weekend preparedness strategies to increase visit reliability and responsiveness.
* Review trends and gaps weekly to reinforce clinician accountability and responsiveness.

HOPE (Hospice Outcomes & Patient Evaluation) Measures -
* Champion consistent completion of the HOPE patient assessment tool.
* Ensure accuracy and completeness of HOPE based quality measures, including:
o Pain screening
o Pain assessment
o Dyspnea treatment
o Bowel regimen for opioid patients
o Treatment for shortness of breath
* Use HOPE data to guide clinical coaching, documentation improvement, and care standardization.

CAHPS Hospice Survey (Family Experience of Care) -
* Lead improvement strategies for CAHPS domains including communication, emotional support, symptom management, and overall care rating.
* Review feedback trends monthly to identify opportunities for improving responsiveness, cultural sensitivity, and family engagement.
* Partner with nursing and psychosocial leaders to ensure families receive timely updates, education, and anticipatory guidance.

* Participates in special projects and performs other duties as assigned.

Licenses and Certifications:

• MD or DO with active medical license in New York State (or eligibility within 60 days of hire)
• Board Certification in Hospice & Palliative Medicine required
• Hospice Medical Director Certification preferred
• Current DEA registration and Hospital/SNF credentialing eligibility
• No exclusions from Medicare or Medicaid participation

Work Experience:

• Minimum of 5-7 years of clinical experience in hospice or palliative care, with at least 3 years in a leadership or administrative capacity
• In-depth knowledge of the Medicare Hospice Benefit, CMS regulations, and Conditions of Participation
• Exceptional communication, team leadership, and strategic planning capabilities