Behavioral Health Medical Director

Position Summary:
Under the direct supervision of the Chief Behavioral Health Officer (CBHO), the CARES Medical Director provides clinical leadership and consultation. The role is multidimensional and includes the direction and oversight of clinical services as well as administrative and educational oversight related to the care of the patients served. In addition, the medical director assures the clinical actions taken by the CARES team meets standards of quality medical and psychiatric care, including integration of physical healthcare, mental health, and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. CARES medical director oversight is a cooperative effort requiring other CARES clinicians and staff to work together for effective treatment and service delivery. Therefore, the medical director must have a collaborative and unified approach to working with CARES leadership and team.

Essential Functions of the Job:
In coordination with the Chief Behavioral Health Officer, the CARES Medical Director will be responsible for the medical component of care and integrating mental health, substance use, and primary care. The specific responsibilities include the following:
• Provides a minimum 0.7 FTE of direct patient care in addition to responsibilities and duties.
• In collaboration with CARES Program Manager, assures that all people receiving CARES services receive appropriate assessment, diagnosis, treatment, medical screening, and medical/psychiatric evaluation.
• Participates in the development, approval, and review of all policies, procedures, and protocols that govern clinical care and the integration of behavioral health and primary care related to CARES.
• In collaboration with CARES Program Manager, ensures the availability of adequate staffing to provide clinical, medical, administrative leadership, and clinical care throughout the clinic.
• In collaboration with the CARES Program Manager, reviews/approves CARES job descriptions for all clinical staff. Responsible for interviewing, recruiting, and onboarding new psychiatrists and therapists at the clinic.
• Evaluates and supervises psychiatrists and therapists, and oversees the peer-review process. Oversees resident and medical student rotations and evaluations.
• Ensures that all clinical staff receive appropriate supervision, staff development, and in-service training.
• Advises the CBHO regarding development and review of the CARES programs, positions, and budgets that impact clinical services. Participates in community-wide behavioral health gap analysis and program development.
• Participates with the CBHO, Director of Behavioral Health Operations, and CARES Program Manager in making liaisons with private and public payors, particularly with medical directors or equivalent clinical leadership in payor organizations.
• Assures the quality of treatment and related services provided by the CARES professional staff through participation (directly or by designee) in ongoing quality improvement and audit processes.
• Provides oversight to ensure appropriate utilization of services throughout CARES, by developing appropriate continuum of programs, identifying the level of care criteria, standards of practice for internal review of the level of care determinations, and appeal of adverse utilization review decisions.
• Participates in the development of a clinically relevant outcome evaluation process.
• Acts as liaison for CARES with community physicians, hospital staff, and other professionals and agencies with regard to psychiatric services. Develops and maintains, whenever possible, training programs in concert with various medical schools and graduate educational programs.
• Performs other duties as required or assigned by CBHO.

By licensure, training and prior clinical and administrative experience, the medical director should be qualified to carry out these functions. The medical director must be board certified. Specifically, they should be knowledgeable about contemporary therapeutic and rehabilitative modalities necessary to work with the population served by the clinic.

Additional Duties and Responsibilities
• Adheres to all applicable SYHealth policies, procedures, protocols and best practices.
• Demonstrates effective verbal and written communication skills in collaboration with teams to achieve quality, excellence, harmony and problem-solving to obtain stated goals and objectives.
• Complies with established departmental and health center wide policies and procedures, objectives, quality assurance program, safety, environmental and infection control standards.
• Ability to organize, set priorities and exercise sound independent judgment within areas of responsibility.
• Ability to be culturally sensitive and appropriate in working with underserved communities.
• Establishes an