Director of Practice Management - School of Dental Medicine

Tufts University•Boston, MA

About The Position

The Director of Practice Management provides strategic, operational, and financial leadership for a multidisciplinary academic dental department encompassing Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Craniofacial Care. The role supports a complex care-delivery model that includes faculty/private-practice services, predoctoral student clinics, postgraduate residency programs, and collaborative care across the dental school and affiliated health system. Working in close partnership with the Department Chair, program and clinical leaders, faculty, and school administration, the Director translates academic and clinical priorities into effective operations, measurable performance, and sustainable growth. The Director is accountable for aligning people, systems, schedules, facilities, technology, and financial resources while preserving the department's educational mission and supporting safe, accessible, patient-centered care. This is a visible, proactive, and solutions-oriented leadership position. Success requires the ability to navigate competing clinical, academic, financial, and regulatory priorities; build trust across diverse stakeholder groups; and create consistent operating practices across multiple programs and levels of care.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in healthcare administration, business, management, public health, or a related field.
Seven or more years of progressive leadership experience in healthcare practice management, academic clinical operations, ambulatory care, or a comparably complex environment.
Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary operations, budgets, teams, and performance-improvement initiatives.
Strong knowledge of healthcare financial and operational metrics, revenue cycle, workforce planning, and patient-access practices.
Ability to work effectively with faculty, clinicians, learners, senior administrators, and cross-functional partners in a matrixed organization.
Excellent communication, judgment, organization, change leadership, relationship-building, and problem-solving skills.
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities, resolve ambiguity, and move complex initiatives from planning through sustained implementation.

Nice To Haves

Master's Degree in healthcare administration, business, public health, or a related field.
Leadership experience in an academic medical center, dental school, teaching hospital, or health-sciences environment.
Experience supporting faculty practice, predoctoral clinical education, graduate medical/dental education, or residency programs.
Oral and maxillofacial surgery, craniofacial care, surgical specialty, or dental specialty practice experience.
Experience with sedation/anesthesia operations, operating-room coordination, surgical scheduling, and complex interdisciplinary care.
Experience with dental and medical reimbursement, referral-network development, technology implementation, and digital patient-access solutions.

Responsibilities

Serve as the senior administrative and operational partner to the Department Chair and clinical/program leaders.
Translate departmental and school priorities into annual operating plans, measurable goals, timelines, and accountable action items.
Create an integrated operating model across Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Craniofacial Care while recognizing the distinct clinical and educational needs of each area.
Maintain a visible leadership presence; identify barriers early; facilitate decisions; and ensure timely resolution of operational issues.
Represent the department on school, hospital, and cross-functional committees as assigned.
Direct day-to-day administrative and practice operations across faculty/private-practice, student, and postgraduate clinical settings.
Partner with faculty and clinical leaders to optimize schedules, treatment-room and operating-room utilization, patient flow, access, and provider productivity.
Coordinate administrative support for consultations, procedures, sedation/anesthesia, operating-room activity, interdisciplinary care, and follow-up services, as applicable.
Standardize core workflows while allowing appropriate variation for specialty, learner, and patient-acuity needs.
Develop escalation pathways and business-continuity plans to support reliable operations during staffing shortages, faculty changes, or other disruptions.
Partner with academic leaders to ensure clinical operations support predoctoral education, postgraduate residency training, faculty supervision, and accreditation requirements.
Coordinate clinic capacity, schedules, staffing, and resources to balance patient care, educational experiences, and program objectives.
Support onboarding and operational orientation for faculty, residents, students, and staff.
Establish clear communication and issue-resolution processes among faculty, learners, program directors, clinical teams, and administration.
Use operational data to identify gaps in clinical exposure, capacity, access, or resource allocation that may affect educational outcomes.
Develop, manage, and monitor operating and capital budgets in partnership with departmental and school finance leaders.
Monitor revenue, expenses, collections, staffing costs, productivity, procedure volume, payer mix, and financial performance across the department's clinical components.
Develop dashboards and key performance indicators that distinguish, when appropriate, faculty/private-practice, student, resident, and program-level activity.
Partner with Revenue Cycle, Finance, and Compliance teams to improve charge capture, documentation, claims, denials, accounts receivable, collections, and reimbursement.
Identify opportunities to improve capacity, utilization, productivity, and financial sustainability without compromising education, patient safety, or quality.
Ensure patients are appropriately triaged, scheduled, prepared, and supported throughout the care journey.
Strengthen processes for referrals, authorizations, records, imaging, clinical documentation, care coordination, and communication with referring providers.
Reduce incomplete referrals, avoidable delays, cancellations, and barriers to specialty care.
Support coordinated, interdisciplinary care for medically and surgically complex patients across the department's specialty programs.
Monitor patient feedback, access measures, and service recovery trends and lead improvements in the patient and referring-provider experience.
Partner with clinical and academic leaders to evaluate opportunities for program growth, new services, and improved community access.
Monitor referral sources, referral volume, conversion, procedure volume, wait times, and capacity trends.
Build productive relationships with referring dentists, physicians, hospitals, community providers, and internal clinical programs.
Develop business cases and implementation plans for new programs, equipment, technology, space, and staffing investments.
Support the department's visibility and reputation through responsive referral communication and strong institutional partnerships.
Recruit, develop, coach, and retain high-performing administrative and operational teams.
Establish clear roles, decision rights, performance expectations, service standards, and accountability.
Align staffing models and schedules with patient demand, educational activity, faculty coverage, and clinical volume.
Promote collaboration, professionalism, inclusion, psychological safety, and service excellence across disciplines and employee groups.
Build cross-training, succession planning, and leadership-development practices that strengthen operational continuity.
Lead process-improvement initiatives that simplify work, reduce administrative burden, and create consistent, reliable operations.
Identify and implement technology solutions that improve scheduling, referrals, patient communication, documentation, analytics, and clinical operations.
Use data to evaluate performance, test changes, and sustain improvements.
Lead change management, stakeholder communication, training, and adoption for new systems and workflows.
Partner with information technology and clinical systems teams to address integration, reporting, access, and workflow needs.
Ensure administrative and practice operations comply with school and institutional policies, accreditation standards, privacy requirements, payer rules, and applicable healthcare regulations.
Partner with clinical leadership, Compliance, Risk Management, Infection Prevention, and Quality teams on documentation, patient safety, incident response, and regulatory readiness.
Maintain appropriate operational policies, procedures, controls, and audit practices.
Identify and appropriately escalate compliance, safety, privacy, and financial-integrity concerns.
Support continuous quality improvement and a culture of accountability and learning.