Director of Palliative Behavioral Health Integration

Edison, New Jersey

Hybrid

NJ Palliative Care Solutions is seeking a clinically strong and operationally driven leader to design, launch, and oversee a behavioral health program integrated within our palliative care services for older adults with serious illnesses.

This role will initially focus on building and operationalizing an SNF-based behavioral health model supporting medically complex and seriously ill patients across our palliative care platform, while also developing telehealth-based continuity services to support patients after discharge and in community settings when appropriate.

The ideal candidate is a builder who can combine clinical expertise, interdisciplinary leadership, workflow development, program implementation, quality oversight, and team management to create scalable, patient-centered behavioral health services integrated within palliative care.

Performance-based bonus included.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and launch a behavioral health program integrated within palliative care for older adults with serious illnesses.

• Build the clinical and operational framework for palliative-based behavioral health across SNFs and related care settings.

• Define patient eligibility, referral pathways, screening protocols, triage processes, visit cadence, treatment pathways, discharge criteria, and escalation workflows.

• Develop clinical protocols for common behavioral health needs in serious illness populations including depression, anxiety, grief, anticipatory grief, caregiver stress, demoralization, behavioral symptoms, adjustment to illness, and crisis identification.

• Partner closely with palliative care physicians, APPs, social workers, and operational leadership to embed behavioral health into interdisciplinary care planning and workflows.

• Create workflows supporting SNF-based care, post-discharge follow-up, and telehealth continuity for appropriate patients.

• Hire, train, supervise, and mentor behavioral health clinicians and support staff.

• Develop documentation standards, note templates, care coordination workflows, communication protocols, and quality assurance processes.

• Establish measurable program metrics including access, referral conversion, clinician productivity, documentation quality, patient and family experience, and clinical outcomes.

• Collaborate with clinical leadership, finance, compliance, billing, analytics, and facility partners to ensure program quality and operational success.

• Maintain a limited clinical caseload during launch and support management of complex or escalated patient situations.

• Serve as the operational and clinical leader for behavioral health program development, quality improvement, training, and implementation.

What Success Looks Like

• Launches a behavioral health program that is meaningfully integrated within palliative care workflows.

• Builds practical intake, triage, treatment, handoff, and escalation processes that teams consistently utilize.

• Creates clear distinctions between behavioral health treatment, palliative social work support, care coordination, caregiver support, and referral pathways for higher-acuity psychiatric needs.

• Develops workflows and systems actively used by palliative care clinicians and SNF partners.

• Establishes visibility into program growth, staffing, quality metrics, operational performance, and financial outcomes.

• Builds sustainable and repeatable systems that support long-term scalability and consistency.

Required Qualifications

• Independent clinical licensure required, with strong preference for LCSW or licensed psychologist.

• Significant clinical experience working with older adults, medically complex patients, serious illness populations, or related behavioral health populations.

• Leadership experience in program development, clinical operations, service-line management, or interdisciplinary team oversight.

• Demonstrated ability to build workflows, protocols, staffing models, and quality processes.

• Experience working in palliative care, hospice, SNFs, post-acute care, geriatrics, or related settings.

• Strong clinical judgment related to risk assessment, escalation management, family dynamics, caregiver distress, and the overlap between medical and behavioral symptoms in serious illness.

• Ability to collaborate effectively with physicians, APPs, nurses, social workers, facility staff, and operational teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in palliative care, hospice, psycho-oncology, geriatrics, Gero psychology, or serious illness care.

• Experience launching, scaling, or managing integrated behavioral health programs.

• Familiarity with telehealth workflows supporting medically complex or older adult populations.

• Experience supervising clinicians, building training programs, and leading interdisciplinary teams.

• Comfortable building and scaling programs within fast-paced and evolving healthcare environments.