Vice President of Behavioral Health

Harbor Health Services is an innovative, growing, mission-based organization that lives, serves and collaborates with our community members to achieve our mission to help individuals reach their full potential through access to local, affordable services that promote health. Harbor provides medical, behavioral health, dental, and support services to more than 34,000 patients in Boston, the South Shore, and Cape Cod. Harbor Health also operates two Programs for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly in Mattapan and Brockton and a Woman, Infants and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program. We are seeking a Vice President of Behavioral Health to join our team. 

Harbor Health offers an excellent, comprehensive benefits package including Health, Dental, Vision, Life, & Disability insurance, 403b Savings Plan, Generous Paid Time Off plus 11 additional Holidays and much more! 

Role: 

Reporting to the Chief Medical Officer, the Vice President of Behavioral Health serves as Harbor Health’s executive leader for the Behavioral Health Service Line and provides executive leadership for strategy, clinical quality, access, workforce development, regulatory readiness, financial sustainability, growth, and service line performance across Harbor Health’s multi-site Federally Qualified Health Center programs. The VP role supports integrated care between the Community Health Centers and PACE/ESP by partnering with PACE/ESP leadership on shared models of care, referral pathways, care coordination, training, consultation, and aligned clinical standards, without assuming direct operational oversight of PACE/ESP staff unless specifically assigned. 

The Vice President is accountable for building a patient-centered behavioral health service line that supports primary care, complex care, substance use disorder treatment, psychiatry, therapy, crisis response, and care coordination. This position also advances training and workforce development programs for behavioral health and primary care teams to strengthen integrated practice, team-based care, clinical competencies, documentation, population health, and patient access. The position may include direct clinical care consistent with licensure, organizational need, and executive leadership responsibilities.

Responsibilities: 

Executive Leaderships, Strategy and Governance 

• Serves as Harbor Health’s executive leader for the Behavioral Health Service Line and is accountable for system-wide clinical, operational, financial, workforce, access, quality, regulatory, and patient experience performance across Community Health Center behavioral health services.
• Develops and advances an integrated behavioral health strategy focused on primary care integration, psychiatric care, substance use disorder services, therapy, crisis response, complex care, care coordination, and effective CHC/PACE/ESP collaboration.
• Leads long-range strategic and growth planning for the behavioral health service line, including market positioning, value-based care initiatives, innovation, partnerships, service expansion, new treatment modalities, external referral partnerships, specialty service, community-facing access strategies, and organizations investment opportunities. 
• Assesses emerging patient, population health, and community behavioral health needs and guides strategic planning, service development, program design, and resource allocation accordingly.
• Partners with the Chief Medical Officer, Senior Leadership Team, CHC operations, nursing, quality, compliance, revenue cycle, finance, human resources, and PACE/ESP leadership to support shared behavioral health priorities, coordinated workflows, and measurable outcomes.
• Provides regular reports and recommendations to the Executive Leadership Team, Board committees, and other governance bodies regarding behavioral health strategy, access, service line performance, quality outcomes, workforce trends, regulatory risk, and financial results.
• Advises executive leadership on behavioral health trends, regulatory changes, risk issues, workforce needs, access barriers, and opportunities to improve integrated care across Harbor Health.

Operations, Access and Service Line Performance

• Establishes system-wide standards for CHC behavioral health access, referral management, scheduling, template design, clinical productivity, documentation, coding, care transitions, and follow-up, while supporting aligned referral and communication pathways with PACE/ESP.
• Develops and monitors behavioral health budgets, staffing models, productivity expectations, grant obligations, service line performance, payer performance, reimbursement strategy, coding integrity, revenue optimization, and financial sustainability in collaboration with Finance and Revenue Cycle.
• Partners with Information Technology, Clinical Applications, and operational leaders to optimize Epic/OCHIN tools, referral pathways, dashboards, registries, documentation workflows, and data reporting for behavioral health services.
• Uses data to monitor access, utilization, productivity, quality, patient experience, staff engagement, health equity, and population health outcomes; develops action plans when performance does not meet expectations.

Workforce Leadership, Supervision and Training 

• Leads behavioral health workforce planning, recruitment, onboarding, supervision structure, retention, succession planning, professional development, and performance management for CHC behavioral health staff.
• Provides leadership, coaching, and accountability for assigned behavioral health managers, supervisors, clinicians, prescribers, and administrative support structures, with consultation and collaboration to PACE/ESP teams as requested through established leadership channels.
• Designs and supports training programs for behavioral health clinicians, prescribers, supervisors, care coordinators, primary care providers, nurses, medical assistants, and other team memebers to strengthen integrated behavioral health practice, warm handoffs, care transitions, trauma-informed care, substance use disorder treatment, psychiatric consultation, documentation, and team-based communication.
• Develops behavioral health professional development pathways, competency expectations, supervision models, continuing education opportunities, student and trainee placements, and leadership development activities that support workforce growth across behavioral health and primary care settings.
• Oversees and strengthens student, trainee, intern, teaching, academic, and continuing education partnerships for behavioral health disciplines and supports cross-training opportunities that improve collaboration between behavioral health and primary care teams.

Quality, Compliance, Risk and Clinical Standards

• Provides executive oversight of behavioral health credentialing, privileging, competency validation, professional practice standards, peer review expectations, and clinical supervision structures in collaboration with Medical Staff leadership, Human Resources, Quality, and Compliance.
• Leads behavioral health quality improvement, patient safety, risk reduction, utilization review, peer review, incident response, and corrective action processes in collaboration with Quality, Compliance, Risk Management, and clinical leadership.
• Ensures CHC behavioral health programs maintain readiness for applicable federal, state, payer, accreditation, credentialing agency, outside reviewer, HRSA, DPH, MassHealth, privacy, substance use disorder, and third-party requirements, while supporting PACE/ESP alignment through consultation with accountable PACE/ESP leaders.
• Oversees development, implementation, and maintenance of behavioral health policies, procedures, standing workflows, clinical protocols, competency expectations, and operational standards.

Growth, Partnerships and External Relationships

• Partners with executive leadership on capital planning, business development opportunities, program expansion, staffing investments, and organizational decisions affecting behavioral health services.
• Represents Harbor Health with community mental health organizations, hospitals, payers, academic partners, government agencies, professional associations, and other external stakeholders on matters related to behavioral health strategy, integrated care, service capacity, and community need.
• Oversees behavioral health contractual relationships, clinical affiliations, vendor partnerships, academic agreements, grant-supported initiatives, and external service arrangements in collaboration with executive leadership and other accountable departments.

Clinical Practice and other Responsibilities

• May provide direct clinical care consistent with licensure, scope of practice, organizational need, and time allocated for executive leadership responsibilities.
• Directly supervises assigned CHC behavioral health leadership positions and maintains accountability for the overall behavioral health workforce across Community Health Centers, including clinical supervisors, clinicians, prescribers, administrative support structures, student/trainee programs, and other CHC behavioral health staff.
• Maintains regular and punctual attendance.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Requirements: 

• Master’s or doctoral degree in behavioral health, social work, psychology, psychiatric nursing, counseling, healthcare administration, public health, or related field required; doctoral degree or relevant executive leadership training preferred
• Current Massachusetts independent clinical license (LICSW, LMHC, LADC1, or PMHNP) or licensed psychologist (Ph.D. or Psy.D.) 
• Current BLS (Basic Life Support for Healthcare Providers) Certification 
• Minimum of eight to ten years of progressive behavioral health leadership experience, including responsibility for multi-site operations, service line management, strategic planning, budget accountability, and leadership of managers and supervisors
• Demonstrated experience leading behavioral health strategy, access, quality, operations, workforce development, training programs, budgeting, regulatory readiness, performance improvement, payer/revenue cycle collaboration, contracting, and service line growth
• Experience supervising managers, clinical supervisors, independently licensed clinicians, prescribers, and interdisciplinary behavioral health teams; demonstrated ability to lead through other leaders required
• Strong working knowledge of behavioral health delivery in FQHCs, integrated primary care, substance use disorder treatment, psychiatric services, managed care, value-based care, and health equity preferred
• Familiarity with applicable Massachusetts DPH, MassHealth, HRSA, privacy, substance use disorder, payer, accreditation, and PACE/ESP-related care coordination requirements preferred
• Experience with Epic/OCHIN or comparable electronic health record systems, data dashboards, population health tools, and performance reporting strongly preferred
• Excellent executive communication, collaboration, coaching, change management, problem-solving, and analytical skills
• Proficiency with Office 365 including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Teams required
• Must be able to travel between Harbor locations in a timely manner 

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status.

The salary range and/or hourly rate listed is a good faith determination of base compensation that may be offered to a successful applicant for this position at the time of this job advertisement. 

When determining actual base salary and/or rate, several factors may be considered as applicable (e.g. location, years of relevant experience, education, training, and other factors as permissible by law). As such, most offers will not be at the top of the salary range.