Director of Clinical Operations

Peregrine Health Corporate•Nashville, TN

About The Position

The Director of Clinical Operations (DCO) is the dedicated operational leader for Peregrine Health’s provider team. This role owns provider performance, ramp-to-productivity timelines, team development, and retention across a multi-state behavioral health footprint. The DCO ensures every provider has the support, tools, and operational infrastructure to deliver excellent care and reach full productivity. Working alongside clinical leadership, the DCO drives the operational side of provider success – from first-day onboarding through sustained, full-caseload performance. Strategic Importance As Peregrine scales its provider workforce across multiple states, provider success becomes the engine of partnership delivery. The DCO ensures headcount growth translates into productive capacity through dedicated leadership over clinician ramp, performance accountability, and retention. This role creates the structure that allows a distributed provider workforce to operate as a cohesive, high-performing team. Reporting Structure Reports to the VP, Operations. Works closely with the Market Operations team and clinical leadership. Partners with recruiting on provider pipeline and onboarding; coordinates with credentialing and IT to ensure providers are fully operational at go-live. Utilization Ownership Provider utilization is a shared responsibility between two teams. The DCO owns the clinical side: once a patient is on the book, the provider is responsible for scheduling follow-ups at checkout, maintaining a healthy panel, driving patient return rates, and achieving monthly benchmarks. The DCO coaches and holds providers accountable for these clinical-side utilization behaviors. Market Operations owns the front door: converting referrals into scheduled initial visits, backfilling cancellations, and managing inbound schedule density. The two teams partner closely, with a clear handoff - Market Ops gets the patient on the book; the provider, under DCO oversight, keeps them coming back.

Requirements

Healthcare Experience: 5+ years in healthcare operations, practice management, or clinical team leadership. Behavioral health experience strongly preferred. Multi-site or multi-state experience a plus.
People Leadership: Proven ability to manage, develop, and retain clinical or professional staff across distributed teams. Comfortable with direct performance conversations.
Provider Relations: Track record of building trust with clinicians. Understands the provider perspective and what drives engagement and performance.
Operational Rigor: Strong organizational skills with the ability to track performance across a large team of providers and take action on data. Comfortable building and interpreting dashboards and reports.
Problem-Solving: Proactive and adaptable. Navigates ambiguity and addresses issues before they escalate. Bias toward action over analysis paralysis.
Communication: Excellent interpersonal skills. Delivers constructive feedback directly and with clarity. Effective at translating operational data into leadership-ready recommendations.
Technology: Comfortable with EHR systems, productivity dashboards, scheduling platforms, and collaboration tools.
Education: Bachelor’s degree required. Healthcare administration or related field preferred.
Mission Fit: Passion for expanding access to quality behavioral health care in underserved communities.

Responsibilities

Provider Ramp and Onboarding: Own the provider onboarding experience from offer acceptance through full productivity. Define ramp milestones with clear week-by-week expectations. Ensure new providers are onboarded, trained, and schedule-ready by target go-live dates - and that they hit productivity milestones as they ramp.
Performance Management: Track provider-level productivity, utilization, show rates, and visits per day. Identify performance gaps early through regular analysis of key metrics. Build and execute improvement plans with specific, measurable targets.
Clinical-Side Schedule Management: Ensure providers schedule follow-up visits at checkout, maintain target panel sizes, and keep their books full through patient retention. Partner with Market Operations on capacity alignment, but own the provider behaviors that drive schedule density from the return-visit side. Ensure providers complete their part of pre-visit workflows - including condition-specific intake requirements, paperwork coordination, and readiness steps - so patients have a successful first visit. Coordinate with Market Operations on shared intake processes where clinical and operational responsibilities overlap.
Team Development: Build strong team culture and working relationships across a distributed workforce. Facilitate regular check-ins, team meetings, and professional development. Create pod-level peer support structures.
Retention and Engagement: Proactively identify retention risks and address provider concerns before they escalate. Track engagement signals and create an environment where clinicians want to stay and grow.
Operational Support: Coordinate with Market Operations to resolve provider-facing issues - scheduling, technology, workflow, and patient-access barriers. Ensure problems are addressed within defined SLAs.
Standards and Compliance: Ensure all providers operate to Peregrine standards for documentation timeliness, patient engagement, and clinical workflows.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with clinical leadership on quality oversight. Work with recruiting on pipeline and hiring needs. Coordinate with credentialing on licensure and compliance. Align with partner organizations on operational expectations.
Reporting and Visibility: Maintain clear visibility into provider performance and team health through weekly reporting. Surface issues and opportunities to leadership with data-backed recommendations - not just status updates.