Head of Psychiatric Practice

LifeStance Health; Scottsdale (AZ); On-site; USD 252,000 - 315,000; Full time

Job summary

LifeStance Health is seeking a Senior Director of Psychiatric Excellence to standardize care across markets, establish evidence-based guidelines, and drive provider education and wellbeing initiatives. You will partner with Medical Leadership, Clinical Operations, Quality, and Learning & Development to reduce unwarranted variation and improve outcomes.

The role involves supervising physician leaders, aligning EHR workflows, and guiding policy development to advance national behavioral health

Qualifications

• 10+ years of psychiatric clinical leadership experience.
• Experience developing clinical standards and provider excellence programs.
• Strong knowledge of psychiatric standards, patient safety, and governance.
• Familiarity with value-based care frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Establish and maintain psychiatric practice standards and guidelines across markets.
• Lead development of evidence-based guidelines, tools, and resources.
• Collaborate with Medical Leadership, Clinical Operations, Quality, and Learning & Development to improve care quality and outcomes.
• Oversee clinician education, onboarding, mentoring, and professional development.

Skills

Leadership in healthcare

Quality improvement

Education program design

Data-driven decisions

Education

MD/DO with board certification in Psychiatry

Job description

At LifeStance Health, we believe in a truly healthy society where mental and physical healthcare are unified to make lives better. Our mission is to help people lead healthier, more fulfilling lives by improving access to trusted, affordable, and personalized mental healthcare. Everywhere. Every day. It's a lofty goal; we know. But we make it happen with the best team in behavioral health.

Thank you for taking the time to explore a career with us. As the fastest growing behavioral health practice group in the country, now is the perfect time to join our clinical team!

ROLE OVERVIEW

This role is responsible for advancing enterprise psychiatric practice excellence by developing standards, evidence-based frameworks, provider excellence programs, and quality improvement initiatives to support psychiatric clinicians, patients, and clinical operations. Success looks like psychiatric standards, reduced unwarranted variation, improved quality and safety, and measurable improvement in psychiatric outcomes. This role will help to design and implement psychiatric Centers of Excellence, establish measurable quality frameworks, and build sustainable pipelines for clinician recruitment, retention, education, and wellbeing at a national organization.

This role is part of a team who will be assisting with implementing the and guiding the directives of the CMO team. We are seeking a highly collaborative, mission-driven professional with strong emotional intelligence, sound judgment, and exceptional executive functioning. The ideal candidate is a mature and efficient team player who communicates thoughtfully, remains solutions-oriented under pressure, and consistently puts shared goals above personal agenda. This person should be energized by the opportunity to help shape the future of mental healthcare and thrive in a high-accountability environment built on trust, focus, and mutual respect.

Consistent with LifeStance's values, every member of the LifeStance team is expected to support each other and the mission, which may mean participating in projects and initiatives and performing functions and responsibilities not specifically outlined in this job description.

KEY RESPONSIBILITES

• Establish and maintain organizational psychiatric practice standards, treatment frameworks, and clinical expectations across markets and service lines.
• Lead development and implementation of evidence-based psychiatric guidelines, tools, protocols, and practice resources.
• Partner with Medical Leadership, Clinical Operations, Quality, Clinical Excellence, Learning & Development, and Measurement-Based Care teams to improve psychiatric care quality, safety, consistency, and outcomes.
• Identify and address psychiatric practice variation through data review, education, and performance improvement initiatives.
• Build and oversee a comprehensive clinician education and professional development curriculum across specialties and practice settings
• Design and oversee psychiatric provider excellence programs, including onboarding support, competency frameworks, mentoring structures, and ongoing professional development.
• Assist with transition to uniform and singular EHR use across the organization and developing efficient EHR workflows and policies that support the clinical user.
• Support development and review of psychiatric clinical policies, protocols, and standards that align with applicable laws, regulations, and professional expectations.
• Monitor psychiatric quality metrics, patient safety trends, outcomes, and clinical effectiveness measures to inform improvement priorities.
• Serve as a strategic advisor and subject matter expert regarding psychiatric practice trends, provider enablement, clinical risk, and standards of care.
• Lead initiatives supporting physician wellbeing, joy in medicine, and burnout prevention across the enterprise.
• Report on quality metrics, program outcomes, and workforce key performance
• indicators to the Vice President and C-suite stakeholders

Scope / Decision-Making / Impact

This role receives strategic direction from the Senior Leader, Psychiatric Excellence & Emerging Therapeutics and independently translates enterprise priorities into psychiatric practice standards, implementation plans, quality improvement priorities, and provider enablement strategies. The role makes day-to-day decisions regarding clinical framework development, education priorities, practice variation assessment, and quality improvement recommendations. Input or escalation is required when decisions involve enterprise-wide policy changes, regulatory or legal implications, significant operational impact, patient safety risk, or new areas of clinical practice standardization.

Supervisory Responsibilities

This role may supervise direct reports as the psychiatric practice function scales and may provide functional leadership to physician leaders, psychiatric advanced practice provider stakeholders, and cross-functional workstreams. The role influences performance through standards, coaching, education, clinical guidance, and accountability for quality and outcomes improvement across the psychiatric provider population.

REQUIREMENTS

• MD or DO with board certification in Psychiatry.
• Active, unrestricted medical license and ability to maintain appropriate licensure requirements.
• 10+ years of psychiatric clinical experience, including progressive leadership experience within healthcare or behavioral health organizations.
• Demonstrated experience developing clinical standards, treatment frameworks, quality improvement initiatives, or provider excellence programs.
• Strong understanding of psychiatric standards of care, patient safety, clinical governance, regulatory expectations, and evidence-based practice.
• Familiar with value-based care frameworks
• Ability to influence senior clinical and operational stakeholders across a complex, matrixed organization.
• Excellent written, verbal, facilitation, and executive communication skills.
• Qualified candidates must be legally authorized to be employed in the United States
• LifeStance is an EEO/Affirmative Action Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.
• Demonstrates awareness, inclusivity, sensitivity, humility, and experience in working with individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, sexual orientations, gender identities, and other various aspects of culture.

PREFERRED SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

• Multi-state behavioral health or outpatient mental health leadership experience.
• Experience leading physician practice transformation, clinical quality, or provider development initiatives.
• Published research or quality improvement scholarship
• Experience using outcomes data, measurement-based care, or population-level clinical metrics to guide practice improvement.
• Experience representing psychiatric leadership in governance forums, executive discussions, or external professional settings.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

• The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of the job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit, stand, bend, talk and hear. The employee is frequently required to walk. The employee must be able to lift and/or move objects up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and the ability to adjust focus.

COMPENSATION

$252,000 - $315,000/annually in addition to a competitive bonus plan and equity potential

About LifeStance Health

LifeStance is a national provider of mental healthcare services focused on evidenced-based, medically driven treatment services for children, adolescents and adults suffering from a variety of mental health issues in an outpatient care setting, both in-person at its clinics nationwide and through its digital health telemedicine offering. The company employs psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and licensed therapists throughout the US.

LifeStance Health is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are fully committed to creating an inclusive work environment for all our employees.

Our values:

Belonging: We cultivate a space where everyone can show up as their authentic self.

Empathy: We seek out diverse perspectives and listen to learn without judgment.

Courage: We are all accountable for doing the right thing - even when it's hard - because we know it's worth it.

One Team: We realize our full potential when we work together towards our shared purpose.

If you elect to interact with us via our website, please only use www.lifestance.com or www.careers.lifestance.com . Additionally, our recruiters utilize email addresses with the @lifestance.com domain. Other websites and domains are not affiliated with LifeStance Health and may represent threats to your data security.

LifeStance Health complies with federal and state disability laws and makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact our Human Resources Team at [e-mail] or by calling [phone]. Please note: This contact is intended solely for accommodation requests. Inquiries regarding applications, resumes and applicant status should not be sent to this email address as they will not be reviewed or responded to.