Director of Nursing, Hospice

Alternate Solutions Health Network•Detroit, MI

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The Director, Nursing Hospice Services provides senior clinical leadership for hospice services across a single hospice program, including all levels of care, admissions, after-hours support, and assigned clinical functions. This role is responsible for ensuring safe, compliant, cost-effective, patient-centered care from referral through discharge while supporting timely access, continuity of care, quality outcomes, and regulatory readiness. The Director, Nursing Hospice Services is accountable for clinical operations execution and assigned clinical leadership under the direction of the Executive Director, who maintains ultimate accountability for overall agency performance, growth, compliance, fiscal outcomes, and strategic leadership. The Director provides direct leadership to Clinical Managers and assigned front-line team members. This role partners with the Executive Director, medical providers, Care Integration, intake, quality, Human Resources, and interdisciplinary teams to execute operational priorities, strengthen clinical performance, support employee engagement, and advance patient and family satisfaction.

Requirements

Minimum of five years of nursing experience required.
Current Registered Nurse license in the state of employment required.
Valid driver’s license and auto insurance required.

Nice To Haves

Minimum of three years of progressive clinical leadership experience preferred.
Prior Director of Nursing, Assistant Director of Nursing, Clinical Manager, Nurse Manager, Unit Manager, or equivalent leadership experience preferred.
Hospice, acute care, skilled nursing, post-acute, inpatient, home-based care, or complex clinical operations experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Provides senior clinical oversight from referral through discharge and ensures services align with the hospice plan of care, physician orders, patient and family goals, regulatory requirements, and agency standards.
Leads Clinical Managers and assigned teams in daily operations, staffing priorities, patient care concerns, documentation quality, performance expectations, and operational execution.
Oversees assigned clinical functions, including admissions, after-hours, workflow nursing, centralized support, community care, or General Inpatient Hospice care.
Supports complex clinical situations, urgent patient needs, escalations, patient/family or facility concerns, and risk mitigation.
Organizes resources based on census, acuity, geography, level of care, admissions volume, and patient need, and provides Clinical Manager or Executive Director backup support as needed.
Ensures timely, consistent, high-quality hospice care across assigned services and care settings.
Monitors visit utilization, care plan updates, patient decline, symptom management, caregiver needs, medication concerns, hospitalization risk, revocation risk, and GIP appropriateness.
Supports effective handoffs between intake, admissions, after-hours, Clinical Managers, field teams, GIP teams, and Care Integration to promote continuity and reduce gaps in care.
Reviews referral, admission, after-hours, repeat caller, and escalation trends to improve speed to care, communication, patient/family experience, referral source confidence, and census readiness.
Partners with Clinical Managers to improve team communication, caseload management, productivity, and responsiveness to changing patient needs.
Ensures clinical documentation and charting practices meet agency, Medicare, federal, state, accreditation, and payor requirements.
Maintains survey readiness and compliance with hospice Conditions of Participation, agency policy, professional standards, eligibility requirements, recertification expectations, and level-of-care documentation.
Reviews incidents, complaints, adverse events, clinical concerns, audits, reports, and data trends to identify risk areas, workflow barriers, staff education needs, and improvement opportunities.
Leads or supports corrective action planning, staff education, workflow improvement, and follow-up when gaps are identified.
Supports agency performance related to visit utilization, symptom management, GIP appropriateness, timely admissions, CAHPS, complaint resolution, patient/family satisfaction, and clinical quality initiatives.
Supports staffing plans aligned with census, acuity, geography, level of care, admissions volume, after-hours needs, patient complexity, and program growth.
Monitors productivity, labor performance, overtime, scheduling effectiveness, staffing efficiency, clinical resource utilization, and operational barriers.
Supports direct cost control through appropriate staffing, supply awareness, medication stewardship, DME coordination, and efficient clinical workflows.
Participates in budget planning, workforce planning, operational forecasting, and census growth readiness as assigned.
Identifies barriers impacting clinical efficiency, patient access, staff capacity, or care quality and partners with leadership to implement practical solutions.
Supervises Clinical Managers, assigned clinical staff, and support team members with clear expectations, consistent follow-up, and accountability.
Coaches leaders and staff in clinical judgment, communication, staffing management, productivity oversight, documentation review, team performance, conflict resolution, and escalation management.
Supports interviewing, onboarding, training, mentoring, retention, performance evaluation, corrective action, and leadership development.
Builds leadership depth by developing current and emerging clinical leaders.
Partners with the Executive Director and Human Resources to resolve staff issues and support employee engagement, satisfaction, accountability, and retention.