Clinical Director of Operations - Hospice in Atlanta, Georgia at Visiting Nurse Health System Inc

Who We Are:

Caring for Atlanta for over 78 years, Visiting Nurse Health System is a leading, non-profit provider of home healthcare, long-term care at home, hospice, and palliative care services. We pride ourselves in helping patients and their loved ones receive care at home following an illness, surgery, or hospital stay. We offer not just a job, but we also offer purpose, impact, and the chance to care deeply for people in the comfort of their homes.

Our vision is to be the first choice for patients, families, payers, and other healthcare providers when they need home healthcare services. We look to not only achieve, but to also maintain exemplary patient and employee satisfaction levels. VNHS is dedicated to continuing our investment in strong community partnerships, providing coordinated care solutions, developing a top-performing workforce, and innovating technologies to improve affordability and access to patient care. We aim to be an organization where healthcare professionals not only prefer to work, but where they are able to grow as professionals. For more information on our organization, please visit us here.

Every day we strive to display our four core values:

• Respect & Integrity - We practice the highest ethical standards and honor our commitments. We are fair, transparent, honest and person-centered in all our actions. We value the beliefs and opinions of our diverse community of patients and employees.
• Excellence - We are committed to delivering the best outcomes and highest quality service through the dedicated efforts of every team member. We are committed to continuous improvement in all that we do and strive to be leaders for others to emulate.
• Stewardship - We enhance the lives of those we serve through responsible planning and management of the resources entrusted to us with each of us contributing toward a shared purpose.
• Care – We will provide compassionate person-centered care while respecting individual physical, emotional, and spiritual needs

About the role:

The Clinical Director of Operations for Hospice provides enterprise-level clinical and operational leadership for hospice services across private homes, assisted living communities, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, and general inpatient settings. Reporting to the Executive Director of Hospice, this role ensures the delivery of safe, high-quality, patient- and family-centered care while maintaining compliance with federal and state regulations, Medicare Conditions of Participation, accrediting standards, and organizational policies.

The Director leads clinical managers and interdisciplinary teams, translates organizational strategy into consistent clinical practices and efficient workflows, and uses data and performance metrics to drive quality, productivity, and operational outcomes. This position partners closely with the Medical Director, physicians, Quality, Compliance, Human Resources, Finance, and Business Development to support clinical excellence, regulatory compliance, community relationships, and sustainable growth.

The ideal candidate is a mission-driven, strategic, and results-oriented healthcare leader with strong expertise in hospice operations and community-based care. This role serves as a key connection between VNHS, patients and families, referral partners, and the broader community, ensuring exceptional care, operational excellence, and alignment with the organization’s mission and strategic goals.

Responsibilities:

The Clinical Director of Operations- Hospice has clinical oversight in addition to daily service delivery, ensuring compliance with governing organizations and payers at the highest standards.

• Provide overall strategic and operational leadership for hospice clinical services across all locations and levels of care, ensuring services align with organizational goals and priorities.
• Direct and develop clinical leaders responsible for nursing, social work, hospice aides, spiritual care, bereavement, volunteer services, and clinical support operations.
• Ensure patients receive safe, timely, coordinated, and person-centered care consistent with the plan of care, physician orders, regulatory requirements, and organizational standards.
• Oversee the full patient care continuum, including admissions, assessments, recertifications, transfers, discharges, deaths, changes in level of care, and complex patient escalations.
• Monitor census, patient acuity, staffing, productivity, visit completion, workflow, service intensity, and barriers to care; take timely corrective action when needed.
• Serve as the senior clinical resource for complex cases, symptom management, ethical concerns, clinical decision-making, and care delivery escalation.
• Partner with the Hospice Medical Director and attending physicians to strengthen clinical decision-making, eligibility, symptom management, and continuity of care.
• Ensure effective interdisciplinary team processes, care planning, documentation, communication, and handoffs across clinical teams and levels of care.
• Lead quality, compliance, risk management, and survey readiness, ensuring adherence to Medicare Conditions of Participation, CHAP, Georgia requirements, accrediting-body standards, and organizational policies.
• Monitor patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, incidents, complaints, grievances, documentation compliance, and other quality indicators; lead performance-improvement initiatives as needed.
• Establish and maintain high standards for clinical documentation, assessments, plans of care, recertifications, orders, and interdisciplinary records.
• Use clinical and operational data to identify trends, improve outcomes, increase efficiency, and strengthen accountability.
• Oversee workforce planning, including recruitment, onboarding, competency validation, coaching, performance management, professional development, retention, and succession planning.
• Ensure appropriate staffing and skill mix based on census, acuity, geography, admissions, and service demands, including 24/7 clinical coverage.
• Provide senior clinical leadership during emergencies, service disruptions, significant incidents, staffing challenges, and other high-risk events.
• Establish effective operational, financial, and resource-management processes while balancing quality, access, productivity, and cost.
• Partner with Finance/Revenue Cycle, Human Resources, Quality, Compliance, and Business Development to support organizational and clinical objectives.
• Identify opportunities to improve care-delivery models, workflows, technology, training, and services based on evidence, performance data, and patient needs.
• Support responsible growth by ensuring clinical capacity, staffing, readiness, and service quality align with referral demand and market expansion.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with physicians, referral sources, facilities, community partners, patients, families, and caregivers.
• Represent hospice clinical operations in organizational leadership activities and selected community and partner engagements.
• Foster a culture of excellence, accountability, teamwork, integrity, respect, innovation, professional development, and exceptional patient and family service.
• Key Performance Areas

  Success in this role will be measured through:

  • Patient & Family Satisfaction: CHAPS patient and caregiver experience scores meet or exceed national averages, with strong satisfaction results, timely communication, and effective complaint resolution.
  • Clinical Quality & Patient Safety: Hospice Care Index, HOPE, PEPPER, and SSVI performance meets or exceeds applicable national benchmarks and remains within acceptable risk thresholds. Maintain strong clinical outcomes, patient safety, and continuity of care, including greater than 85% compliance with timely visits during the last days of life and missed or delayed visits below 15%.
  • Regulatory, CHAP Compliance & Documentation: Maintain compliance with Medicare, CHAP, Georgia, and organizational requirements, including continuous survey readiness and timely corrective-action plans. Ensure clinical documentation is accurate, complete, timely, and compliant with regulatory and billing requirements.
  • Staffing, Retention & Workforce Development: Maintain appropriate staffing and skill mix while fostering employee engagement, competency, professional development, and leadership growth. Achieve annual employee turnover below 20% and improve retention beyond employees’ first year.
  • Productivity, Operational Efficiency & Cost Management: Ensure clinical productivity, staffing effectiveness, resource utilization, and cost management meet agency expectations while maintaining high-quality, cost-conscious care.
  • Census Growth & Service Utilization: Maintain average length of stay, live discharges, service utilization, care-plan effectiveness, and other key performance indicators within established agency targets while supporting sustainable census growth.
  • Referral Source & Community Relationships: Build and maintain strong relationships with referral sources, physicians, facilities, community partners, patients, families, and caregivers to support growth, access, and continuity of care.
  • Program Development & Strategic Growth: Ensure clinical staffing and capacity support targeted growth. Identify and implement new service offerings, care-delivery models, workflows, technology, and improvement initiatives based on patient needs, performance data, and market demand.
  • Strategic Leadership & Organizational Performance: Align clinical operations with organizational priorities through data-driven decision-making, continuous process improvement, innovation, effective resource management, and collaboration across departments.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Nursing, Health Science, or a related field. A valid Georgia professional license is preferred.
• 5–10 years of progressive management and leadership experience in home health, hospice, geriatrics, or a related healthcare environment.
• 5–10 years of experience in hospice healthcare leadership, administration, regulatory compliance, or care management.
• Demonstrated expertise in budget development, financial management, productivity, and operational performance with the ability to design systems that support measurable outcomes.
• Strong knowledge of healthcare management principles, regulatory requirements, care delivery practices, and home health/hospice operations and marketing.
• Proven ability to lead, supervise, motivate, and develop teams while fostering accountability and achieving organizational goals.
• Exceptional interpersonal, communication, organizational, and relationship-building skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with individuals from diverse backgrounds.
• Demonstrated initiative, integrity, enthusiasm, diplomacy, sound judgment, and problem-solving ability.
• Proficiency with computers, email, internet navigation, electronic systems, online HR platforms, and training programs, with the ability to independently learn and utilize new technology.

Salary Range: $110,624.07- 165,936.11

Visiting Nurse is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all individuals. Employment decisions, like all others, are made based on merit.

If you need an accommodation to complete an online application, please contact Visiting Nurse at 404-215-6100.

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