Associate Director, Care Advocacy Behavioral Health Solutions

UnitedHealth Group•Tampa, FL

3d•$112,700 - $193,200•Remote

About The Position

The Associate Director, Care Advocacy provides strategic and operational leadership for behavioral health care advocacy, navigation, and member support programs, with direct leadership responsibility for Elite and Premier. The role is accountable for the performance, quality, service delivery, workforce management, and operational outcomes of Care Advocacy teams serving commercial, government, and specialty behavioral health populations. The Associate Director collaborates with clinical, operations, product, network, technology, compliance, quality, client management, and finance partners to advance operational excellence, regulatory compliance, member engagement, and behavioral health outcomes. The role leads managers and professional staff and translates organizational strategy into disciplined execution supporting growth, transformation, affordability, quality, and member experience. This position may be performed remotely from anywhere in the United States and requires minimal travel. The role leads Care Advocacy, Navigation, EAP, and/or Behavioral Health teams; drives service, quality, productivity, and member satisfaction; supports operational readiness and issue resolution; develops leaders and workforce plans; advances behavioral health strategy and service models; engages clients and stakeholders; uses analytics to improve performance; ensures quality and regulatory compliance; and leads transformation, technology, and cross-functional initiatives.

Requirements

Master's degree in Nursing, Social Work, Psychology, or a related field.
Clinical licensure (LCSW, LPC, LMFT, RN, Psychologist, or equivalent).
At least 3 years of leadership experience managing leaders, supervisors, or professional staff.
Behavioral health industry experience.
Experience leading healthcare, care advocacy, case management, behavioral health, navigation, EAP, customer service, or clinical operations teams.
Demonstrated experience managing operational performance metrics and workforce planning.
Proven ability to lead large-scale operational initiatives and organizational change.
Solid analytical, communication, presentation, and stakeholder management capabilities.
Ability to travel as needed.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting large employer, commercial, government, or specialty behavioral health programs.
Experience with contact center operations, navigation models, care management, and clinical operations.
Experience leading transformation, automation, AI, or digital health initiatives.

Responsibilities

Provide strategic and operational leadership for Care Advocacy, Navigation, EAP, and/or Behavioral Health teams.
Drive performance against service level, accessibility, productivity, quality, and member satisfaction objectives.
Ensure operational readiness for new clients, products, programs, and implementations.
Maintain accountability for day-to-day operations, escalations, and timely issue resolution.
Lead continuous improvement initiatives to strengthen efficiency, effectiveness, and member outcomes.
Lead and develop managers, supervisors, and senior professional staff; build leadership capability and succession plans.
Advance employee engagement, retention, and professional development while fostering accountability, collaboration, innovation, and inclusion.
Guide workforce planning and staffing strategies to align capacity with business demand.
Translate enterprise and business-segment priorities into actionable operational plans and partner with senior leaders on behavioral health transformation.
Support strategic growth opportunities and implementation of new service models; identify opportunities to improve member access, engagement, and clinical outcomes.
Strengthen integration across clinical and non-clinical member support services.
Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to deliver client commitments and business objectives.
Represent operations in client meetings, operational reviews, audits, and performance discussions; provide executive-level reporting, insights, and recommendations.
Cultivate cross-functional partnerships to accelerate decision-making and results.
Use operational dashboards, analytics, and reporting to identify trends, risks, and improvement opportunities.
Monitor and improve service level, speed to answer, abandonment rate, occupancy, productivity, quality scores, clinical outcomes, member satisfaction, Net Promoter Scores, and utilization and engagement metrics.
Apply data-driven insights to inform decisions and improve operational performance.
Ensure adherence to behavioral health policies, accreditation standards, and applicable regulatory requirements; maintain readiness for audits, accreditation activities, and compliance reviews.
Partner with Legal, Compliance, Quality, and Clinical teams to develop and execute corrective action plans.
Lead implementation of new processes, technology solutions, and operating models, including digital transformation and AI-enabled solutions.
Promote innovative approaches to behavioral health navigation and care advocacy and lead complex cross-functional initiatives across Behavioral Health Solutions.