Center Medical Director

Role Description

The Medical Director will join Oak Street Health at a critical time in the history of our company and of primary care. The opportunity for impact is large and growing, and Oak Street is leading the transition from fee-for-service to value-based care.

The Medical Director will be responsible for leading our clinicians in clinicians’ neighborhoods of clinics. The Medical Director will practice primary care in our clinics alongside their physician colleagues on a part-time basis to enable context for the practice and to remain close to our patients. On top of a limited clinical role, they will have mission-critical leadership responsibilities, which include setting an example for how thoughtful primary care is practiced, serving as a formal mentor, coach, and advisor to providers in Oak Street clinics, and participating in critical organizational-wide strategic initiatives.

Core Responsibilities

In addition to part-time clinical duties, a Medical Director has substantial administrative time for the following leadership and administrative duties:

• Provider Management: We want provider leadership as close to the bedside as possible. This means our medical directors are in clinics to provide management support and structure to our physicians and teams. This includes ensuring clinic and on-call schedules are adequately staffed, coaching/​interviewing/​promoting Medical Director candidates to take local leadership roles, owning performance reviews for Providers, and supporting new physician orientations among a multitude of other functions. Medical Directors also serve as the local Medical Director in their home clinic.

• Leadership & Coaching: At Oak Street success isn’t completing the visit or hitting an R.V.U. target. Success is high quality care: (1) minimal hospital admissions, (2) excellent preventive/​chronic disease quality metrics, and (3) a great patient experience. In other words: help our patients be happy, healthy, and out of the hospital. Our Medical Directors understand these ends and the means to achieve them, and they recognize these skills don’t come naturally to many clinicians; our Medical Directors share their wisdom with others and help other clinicians understand the value in value-based care. They help Physicians master the data-driven tools and practices required to keep patients well and out of the hospital. They engage all levels of Providers to the benefit of our teams and our patients. Tactically this includes delivering monthly quality dashboards to teams, coaching on tools to improve quality outcomes, and ensuring Physicians are engaged and responsible for the quality of care they deliver.

• Support Organizational Strategy: We expect our Medical Directors to support our goal of continuous improvement. This is leadership close to the bedside, and it gives our medical directors a chance to be ears-on-the-ground as well as eyes-in-the-sky, sharing best practices and improvement opportunities with others on the Oak Street team. The Medical Director’s duties are primarily focused on the smart management of their regional neighborhood, but they will have strategic input into a variety of organizational-wide projects and other initiatives which will fall into the following categories:

  • Care Management

  • Quality Improvement

  • Utilization Management

  • Clinical Committee Functions/​Leadership

  • Network Management

  • Health Plan Management

  • Documentation/​Risk Adjustment

  • Clinical Compliance & Policy Development

Candidates with specific experience and expertise in these fields will have greater input into those initiatives and can expect growing roles in these domains as we grow.

• Drive Culture: At Oak Street, we foster a culture of innovation and open dialogue, and we work with urgency. This requires passion and enthusiasm, active listening skills, and comfort with and commitment to regular change. Our Medical Directors are expected to support this culture and set an example for others to follow. 

• Other duties as assigned.

What are we looking for?

Ideal candidates will be

• Passionate about their work and motivated to be a part of a fast growing organization.

• Aware of their leadership skills and potential for impact and eager to share those with a fast growing, energetic team on the leading edge of healthcare innovation.

• M.D., D.O., N.P., or P.A. graduates.

• Board certification in Internal Medicine or Family Medicine required for M.D. or D.O., Board certification in Family, Adult, or Gerontology for A.P.N.

• Fellowship training in Geriatrics, other professional degrees (e.g., M.B.A., J.D., M.P.H.), and prior executive roles welcome but certainly not required.

• 5–15 years of experience in outpatient practice.

• Extensive experience in clinical leadership roles, leading and coaching physicians to be the best they can be for their patients and their colleagues.

• Experience using a metrics-driven approach to analyze cost, quality, and satisfaction data to drive clinical strategy and program redesign.

• Excited by process of developing and implementing new processes.

• Belief that population health and a focus on smart allocation of scarce resources can lead to high value care (better care, lower cost), both in terms of quality and safety.

• Ability to maintain composure under challenging circumstances while guiding others to smart, effective solutions.

• Commitment to our patient population.

• Comfort with ambiguity and a passion for problem solving.

• US work authorization.

• Someone who embodies being ​“Oaky”.