Head of Psychiatric Practice

LifeStance Health•New York City, NY

5d•$252,000 - $315,000

About The Position

The Head of Psychiatric Practice advances enterprise psychiatric practice excellence by developing standards, evidence-based frameworks, provider excellence programs, and quality improvement initiatives that support psychiatric clinicians, patients, and clinical operations. The role aims to establish consistent psychiatric standards, reduce unwarranted practice variation, improve quality and safety, and measurably improve psychiatric outcomes. It helps design and implement psychiatric Centers of Excellence, create quality frameworks, and build sustainable pipelines for clinician recruitment, retention, education, and wellbeing. The role also helps implement and guide directives from the CMO team. The position receives strategic direction from the Senior Leader, Psychiatric Excellence & Emerging Therapeutics and translates enterprise priorities into practice standards, implementation plans, quality improvement priorities, and provider enablement strategies. It makes day-to-day decisions about clinical framework development, education priorities, practice variation assessment, and quality improvement recommendations. Decisions involving enterprise-wide policy changes, legal or regulatory implications, significant operational impact, patient safety risk, or new areas of practice standardization require input or escalation. The role may supervise direct reports as the psychiatric practice function grows and may provide functional leadership to physician leaders, psychiatric advanced practice provider stakeholders, and cross-functional workstreams. It influences performance through standards, coaching, education, clinical guidance, and accountability for quality and outcomes improvement across the psychiatric provider population. Consistent with LifeStance’s values, team members may also participate in projects and perform responsibilities not specifically listed in the job description.

Requirements

MD or DO with board certification in Psychiatry.
Active, unrestricted medical license and ability to maintain appropriate licensure requirements.
10+ years of psychiatric clinical experience, including progressive leadership experience within healthcare or behavioral health organizations.
Demonstrated experience developing clinical standards, treatment frameworks, quality improvement initiatives, or provider excellence programs.
Strong understanding of psychiatric standards of care, patient safety, clinical governance, regulatory expectations, and evidence-based practice.
Familiarity with value-based care frameworks.
Ability to influence senior clinical and operational stakeholders across a complex, matrixed organization.
Excellent written, verbal, facilitation, and executive communication skills.
Legally authorized to be employed in the United States.
Awareness, inclusivity, sensitivity, humility, and experience working with individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, sexual orientations, gender identities, and other aspects of culture.

Nice To Haves

Multi-state behavioral health or outpatient mental health leadership experience.
Experience leading physician practice transformation, clinical quality, or provider development initiatives.
Published research or quality improvement scholarship.
Experience using outcomes data, measurement-based care, or population-level clinical metrics to guide practice improvement.
Experience representing psychiatric leadership in governance forums, executive discussions, or external professional settings.

Responsibilities

Establish and maintain organizational psychiatric practice standards, treatment frameworks, and clinical expectations across markets and service lines.
Lead development and implementation of evidence-based psychiatric guidelines, tools, protocols, and practice resources.
Partner with Medical Leadership, Clinical Operations, Quality, Clinical Excellence, Learning & Development, and Measurement-Based Care teams to improve psychiatric care quality, safety, consistency, and outcomes.
Identify and address psychiatric practice variation through data review, education, and performance improvement initiatives.
Build and oversee a comprehensive clinician education and professional development curriculum across specialties and practice settings.
Design and oversee psychiatric provider excellence programs, including onboarding support, competency frameworks, mentoring structures, and ongoing professional development.
Assist with transition to uniform and singular EHR use across the organization and develop efficient EHR workflows and policies that support clinical users.
Support development and review of psychiatric clinical policies, protocols, and standards aligned with applicable laws, regulations, and professional expectations.
Monitor psychiatric quality metrics, patient safety trends, outcomes, and clinical effectiveness measures to inform improvement priorities.
Serve as a strategic advisor and subject matter expert on psychiatric practice trends, provider enablement, clinical risk, and standards of care.
Lead initiatives supporting physician wellbeing, joy in medicine, and burnout prevention across the enterprise.
Report quality metrics, program outcomes, and workforce key performance indicators to the Vice President and C-suite stakeholders.
Translate enterprise priorities into psychiatric practice standards, implementation plans, quality improvement priorities, and provider enablement strategies.
Potentially supervise direct reports and provide functional leadership to physician leaders, psychiatric advanced practice provider stakeholders, and cross-functional workstreams.
Support organizational projects and initiatives and perform other functions and responsibilities as needed.