Full Job Description
Overview
The Strategic Vice President, Hospice Growth Value-Based Partnerships is a senior enterprise growth leader responsible for expanding hospice market penetration through strategic partnerships with Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Medicare Advantage and other payers, value-based geriatric primary care organizations, health systems, physician groups, and other risk-bearing entities. This executive will develop and execute a comprehensive strategy to position hospice as an essential component of the value-based care continuum-improving patient outcomes, reducing avoidable utilization, supporting quality performance, and creating measurable economic value for health partners. This is a high-impact, enterprise-level role requiring an executive who can operate comfortably with CEOs, CFOs, Chief Medical Officers, population health executives, payer executives, ACO leadership, and physician leaders. The successful candidate will combine deep healthcare business development expertise with an understanding of value-based reimbursement, risk, quality, utilization management, hospice economics and population health. The role will be accountable for creating scalable strategic partnerships that generate incremental hospice census, earlier hospice utilization, increased market penetration, preferred-provider relationships, and sustainable enterprise growth. The traditional hospice growth model is increasingly dependent on competing for referrals within an existing healthcare ecosystem. This role is designed to change the ecosystem itself. The objective is to move hospice from being viewed as a downstream referral destination to being viewed by ACO’s, payers, and value-based primary care organizations as a strategic partner in managing seriously ill patients. The successful executive will build the partnerships, economics, data strategy, and operating model necessary to make that shift and create a new, scalable growth engine for hospice.
Responsibilities
Enterprise Strategy & Market Development- Develop and lead the enterprise strategy for hospice growth through ACOs, value-based care organizations, payers, geriatric primary care, health systems, and risk-bearing provider organizations. - Identify markets and populations where hospice penetration is below potential and develop strategies to capture that opportunity. - Build a national target account strategy prioritizing organizations with significant Medicare, complex-care, and seriously ill patient populations. - Develop differentiated value propositions demonstrating how hospice can improve quality, patient experience, utilization and total cost of care. - Partner with executive and market leadership to translate enterprise agreements into measurable referral and admission growth.
ACO & Value-Based Care Partnerships- Establish dashboards and KPIs measuring partnership performance, hospice penetration, referral growth, conversion, admissions, length of stay, and financial impact. - Translate complex healthcare data into compelling executive-level business cases.
Executive Relationship Development- Develop and maintain relationships with C-suite executives and senior healthcare decision-makers. - Represent the organization at payer, ACO, health-system, population-health, and value-based-care forums. - Serve as the executive sponsor for strategic enterprise partnerships.- Build relationships that extend beyond individual referrals and create long-term strategic alignment.
Cross-Functional Leadership- This executive will work closely with: Chief Growth officer, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Clinical Officer, Payor Contracting, Population Health, Operations, Hospice Medical Leadership, Analytics, Legal, Marketing, Market Presidents and Regional Leaders- The leader will be expected to influence without direct authority, ensuring that strategic partnerships translate into operation execution at the market level.
Success Measures Success will be measured not simply by sales activity, but by enterprise growth and strategic impact, including:- Growth in hospice penetration within targeted ACO populations- Incremental hospice admissions generated through strategic partnerships- Growth in Medicare Advantage and Payer Relationships- Number and quality of strategic/value-based agreements- Growth within value-based geriatric primary care organizations- Preferred provider and strategic partnership development- Increased hospice penetration within targeted health systems and physician organizations- Establish executive relationships with ACO CEOs, population health leaders, medical directors, and contracting executives. - Develop preferred-provider, strategic partnership, and value-based arrangements that position hospice as a critical component of the partner’s care model.- Identify opportunities to integrate hospice into care pathways for high-risk and seriously ill patients. - Develop strategies to increase hospice penetration among attributed Medicare populations. - Collaborate with ACOs to identify patients who may benefit from hospice, palliative care, advanced care planning, and other serious-illness services.
Payer & Medicare Advantage Strategy- Build relationships with Medicare Advantage plans, payers executives, delegated-risk organizations, and other healthcare payers. - Develop partnerships that increase hospice access and utilization while aligning with payer quality and financial objectives.- Identify opportunities involving preferred networks, value-based contracts, shared savings, care management, quality incentives, and population health initiatives.- Partner with finance, contracting, clinical, and operations leadership to evaluate the economics and scalability of payer relationships. - Develop payer-specific strategies based on market penetration, utilization, quality performance, and hospice opportunity.
Value -Based Geriatric Primary Care- Create a strategy to make hospice and palliative care an integrated component of value-based geriatric primary care. - Develop relationships with organizations managing high-risk Medicare and senior populations. - Establish referral pathways and clinical partnerships between primary care, care management, and hospice. - Develop education and engagement strategies for physicians and advanced practice providers around identifying patients appropriate for hospice. - Leverage populations health data to identify patients with significant illness burden and potential unmet hospice needs.
Data, Analytics & Opportunity Identification- Utilize claims, population health, mortality, utilization, quality, and referral data to identify market opportunities. - Develop an analytical framework for determining hospice penetration by payer, ACO, health systems, physician group, diagnosis, geography, and patient population. - Partner with analytics teams to identify “hospice-eligible but not hospice-enrolled” populations. - Incremental hospice ADC attributes to strategic partnerships. - Earlier hospice identification and referral- Reduction in avoidable hospital utilization among appropriate populations- Financial ROI and contribution margin from strategic partnerships- Development of repeatable, scalable partnership models across markets.- Entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to build something new rather than simply manage an existing sales channel
Results oriented- Convert strategic relationships into measurable admissions, ADC, Market penetration, financial performance, and patient impact
Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree preferred• 5+ years of experience in hospice, post-acute care, healthcare partnerships, or healthcare strategy leadership
• 10+ years of progressive healthcare growth, business development, payer, population health, or value-based care experience • Demonstrated success developing enterprise-level healthcare partnerships.• Deep understanding of Medicare, Medicare Advantage, ACOs, risk management, and value-based care. • Strong understanding of hospice, palliative care, post-acute care, and the needs of seriously ill populations. • Proven ability to sell to and influence C-suite healthcare executives• Strong financial acumen with ability to articulate ROI, total cost of care, utilization, margin and economic value.• Experience interpreting claims, population health, utilization, quality, and market data.• Exceptional executive communication, negotiation, presentation, and relationship-building skills• Ability to move between strategy and execution- creating the enterprise strategy while ensuring markets can operationalize it. • Entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to build something new rather than simply manage an existing sales channel• Strategic: Sees where healthcare is moving and positions hospice ahead of the market• Commercially sophisticated: Understand that the conversation with an ACO or payer is about economics, quality, outcomes, and total cost of care- not simply hospice referrals. • Data-driven: Uses population and claims data to identify where opportunity exists and where hospice is underpenetrated. • Executive presence: Can sit across the table from a payer CEO, ACO CEO, health-system president, or CFO and have a strategic business conversation. • Collaborative: Can align growth, clinical, operations, finance, contracting, and market leadership around a common strategy. • Innovative: Develops new models for connecting hospice with primary care, population health, payers, and risk-bearing organizations.