Head of Clinical Quality and Regulatory

LifeStance Health

8d•$208,500 - $220,000

About The Position

The Senior Director, Clinical Quality and Regulatory provides enterprise leadership for LifeStance Health’s clinical quality, patient safety, incident management, regulatory readiness, and accreditation infrastructure within the Chief Medical Office. The role sets strategy, operating models, standards, governance, and accountability mechanisms for a nationally consistent quality function, while aligning, measuring, and sustaining regional execution. It translates clinical quality, patient safety, regulatory, and incident trends into enterprise priorities, improvement strategies, and executive-ready insights for operational, clinical, compliance, and board-level stakeholders. This is an executive leadership role with selective direct involvement in high-risk and complex work. The Senior Director stays sufficiently connected to investigations, survey readiness, and regional execution to maintain credibility with clinicians and operators, while primarily focusing on strategy, standards, governance, escalation, and system-level improvement. The role leads and develops regionally aligned Clinical Quality & Regulatory Managers, partners with senior operational and clinical leaders, and may carry a defined region or portfolio of direct casework. Up to 50% travel to supported regions is required, with additional periodic travel for leadership meetings. Residence in a supported region is strongly preferred. The position requires a master’s degree in a behavioral health discipline, nursing, or a related clinical field, and at least 10 years of relevant experience, including executive-level quality, regulatory, performance improvement, and risk responsibilities. It also requires at least six years of leadership experience. An active, unrestricted clinical license is preferred but not required when equivalent experience is present. The compensation range is $208,500–$220,000 annually, with potential bonus and equity.

Requirements

Master’s degree in a behavioral health discipline, nursing, or a related clinical field.
Ten or more years in behavioral health service delivery, clinical quality, or clinical operations, including executive-level responsibility for quality strategy, regulatory oversight, performance improvement, and organizational risk management in complex healthcare environments.
Six or more years of leadership experience managing directors, managers, and/or cross-functional teams.
Demonstrated success influencing executive stakeholders, leading large-scale quality transformation initiatives, and developing leadership pipelines in growing healthcare organizations.
Track record of hiring, coaching, and developing clinical or quality professionals.
Demonstrated success leading regulatory readiness, accreditation, state licensure, and payer audit activities related to clinical quality and documentation.
Experience developing and executing corrective action plans that drive sustained compliance.
Ability to build and interpret quality data and present findings credibly to executive and board-level audiences.
Willingness to carry selected direct casework alongside leadership responsibilities.
Legally authorized to work in the United States.
Demonstrated awareness, inclusivity, sensitivity, humility, and experience working with people from diverse ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, sexual orientations, gender identities, and other aspects of culture.
An active, unrestricted clinical license (for example, LCSW, LMFT, LPC, PsyD, PhD, APRN, or PA) is preferred but not required; equivalent behavioral health quality, regulatory, or clinical operations experience will be considered.
Ability to meet the stated physical demands, with reasonable accommodation available where applicable.

Nice To Haves

Multi-state or national behavioral health experience, including outpatient, PHP, IOP, or inpatient settings.
Joint Commission or multi-state survey leadership experience.
Process improvement experience such as Lean or Six Sigma green or black belt.
Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ), comparable quality credentials, or equivalent experience.
Experience with peer review, credentialing and privileging, and focused or ongoing professional practice evaluation.
Experience implementing a quality, incident, or risk management platform.
Residence within one of the regions the position supports.

Responsibilities

Lead, coach, hire, onboard, and develop regionally aligned Clinical Quality & Regulatory Managers, including performance management and career development.
Balance regional coverage and workload against incident volume, while preserving team capacity for proactive work.
Build team capabilities in analytics, improvement methodology, regulatory literacy, and influence without authority through structured development plans.
Establish team and cross-functional meeting cadences and connection points across the Chief Medical Office and other functions.
Mentor leaders in collaborative initiatives across Clinical Operations and Practice Operations.
Partner with the Chief Operating Officer and Senior Clinical Operations leadership on enterprise quality, accreditation, and risk initiatives, including planning, communication, and implementation.
Provide enterprise leadership for clinical quality, patient safety, critical incident management, quality-of-care concerns, and regulatory readiness; define standards, decision frameworks, escalation processes, and measurement strategies.
Ensure timely execution and completion of the incident reporting process and lifecycle.
Maintain and refine incident classification and reporting standards to support comparable clinic and regional data.
Consolidate regional findings into an enterprise view of themes, recurrence, and risk, and prioritize themes for corrective action investment.
Oversee enterprise morbidity and mortality rounds.
Set expectations for timely follow-through, validated corrective actions, remeasurement of effectiveness, and clear accountability.
Lead enterprise accreditation surveys, state licensure reviews, and regulatory readiness across the multi-state footprint, including escalations, market coordination, and validated closure of plans of correction.
Define processes and execution of medical-necessity chart audits supporting payor audits, and support countermeasures based on audit outcomes.
Maintain continuous survey readiness by ensuring required documentation, evidence, and supporting materials are organized and current.
Partner with Compliance and Legal to establish and maintain operational boundaries between clinical documentation and medical-necessity review activities and separately managed billing-integrity functions.
Track regulatory and accreditation changes across the multi-state footprint and translate them into practical guidance for regional clinical and operational leaders.
Prepare and present quality reporting to enterprise governance forums, including the Enterprise Quality Council and the Quality & Compliance Committee, and support board-level reporting.
Manage and standardize peer review, including committee materials, quality and safety data, follow-through tracking, and confidential, objective clinical evaluation practices coordinated with Clinical Quality and Regulatory Managers.
Maintain sponsorship from regional vice presidents of operations and regional clinical/medical directors to support the regional triad model.
Serve as an escalation point for managers.
Carry a defined region or portfolio and perform chart audits, investigations, trending, and countermeasure work similar to that performed by Clinical Quality Managers.
Lead investigations of sentinel-level events, cases with significant legal or reputational exposure, and cross-regional patterns.
Build trusted cross-functional relationships with regional leaders and stakeholders through collaboration, responsiveness, and operational support.
Provide quality-team coverage during leave, vacancies, or workload surges without shifting the work back to regions.
Define Quality team reporting and delivery cadence, including regular reviews and quarterly enterprise roll-ups.
Partner with data analytics and technology teams to transition key workflows to sustainable, platform-based solutions that improve accuracy, efficiency, and user experience.
Apply continuous improvement methods to the function’s workflows, including process mapping, root cause analysis, and countermeasure design.
Represent clinical quality requirements in enterprise system initiatives, including electronic health record transition and measurement-based care initiatives.
Support the organization’s mission and participate in projects and initiatives or perform responsibilities beyond those specifically listed when needed.