Lead Inpatient Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistant

Complete Care; Belleville (NJ); On-site; USD 160,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid time off

PTO growth to 33 days

Malpractice & professional liability

Cigna PPO medical with zero premium

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

NJ Palliative Care Solutions is seeking a Lead Advanced Practice Provider (NP/PA) to guide a growing team delivering hospital-based palliative care at Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, NJ.

The role blends direct patient care with APP mentoring, quality oversight, and program-building, while maintaining protected leadership time. A clear path to leadership development and academic pathways awaits.

Qualifications

• Active New Jersey NP or PA license and national board certification.
• DEA + CDS registration, or ability to obtain by start date.
• Minimum 5 years of palliative care experience.
• 1–2+ years of leadership, mentoring, precepting, team lead, or supervisory experience.
• Palliative care certification (e.g., ACHPN / CHPN) preferred.
• Strong communication, clinical judgment, operational follow-through, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day leadership, mentoring, and clinical support to NPs and PAs.
• Carry a focused clinical caseload calibrated to team size — performing at the top of your license with best-practice, holistic, patient-centered, evidence-based interdisciplinary palliative medicine.
• Provide palliative care consultations and follow-up visits across the hospital continuum – from high-acuity ED and ICU encounters to ongoing management on medical, surgical, and specialty units.
• Lead goals-of-care and advance care planning conversations with patients and families, coordinating with partner SNFs and/or hospices if and when appropriate.
• Promote evidence-based standards, quality, and consistent documentation across the team — fully integrating into hospital workflows and shaping the palliative medicine practice.
• Give discharge planning as much attention as intake, managing transitions from inpatient to each patient’s next setting based on their longitudinal preferences and best interests.
• Support onboarding, shadowing, case review, quality review, and escalation workflows.
• Build referral relationships and represent NJPCS with hospital partners.

Skills

Leadership

Mentoring

Clinical leadership

Communication

Interdisciplinary collaboration

Education

NJ NP or PA license

Board certification

Palliative care certification preferred

Job description

Lead and grow a palliative care APP team — while maintaining meaningful clinical practice and protected leadership time as the team grows.

Base salary $160,000–$190,000/year plus annual performance bonus up to $25,000. This is a clinical leadership role with protected leadership time, not a full staff caseload with management layered on top. Direct patient load is calibrated to team size, creating real capacity to lead.

Setting

• License: Inpatient – Clara Maass Medical Center, Belleville NJ
• New Jersey NP or PA license required

About us & the role

NJ Palliative Care Solutions is on a mission to deliver palliative care without walls across New Jersey, partnering with leading health systems including RWJBarnabas Health. We are hiring a Lead Advanced Practice Provider (NP/PA) to guide Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants delivering hospital-based palliative care at Clara Maass Medical Center. The role combines direct patient care, APP mentoring, quality oversight, documentation standards, and practical program-building.

Leadership model

• A clinical leadership role with protected leadership time.
• May be mostly clinical at launch; as the team grows, direct patient load decreases to create capacity for APP onboarding, shadowing, 1:1 mentorship, case and chart review, clinical escalation, referral relationship management, and performance improvement.
• Visibly different from a staff APP role: the Lead helps set standards, strengthen execution, and improve the team’s quality, productivity, and consistency.

Why you’ll want this role

• Real ownership: shape clinical standards, mentor APPs, and help build the program.
• Protected leadership time, with the operational and clinical support to use it well.
• Data-guided mentorship and a collaborative interdisciplinary team behind you.
• Academic pathways, CME, and a clear path to grow your leadership.
• Primarily a Monday–Friday schedule with flexibility to swap workdays.

What you’ll do

• Provide day-to-day leadership, mentoring, and clinical support to NPs and PAs.
• Carry a focused clinical caseload calibrated to team size — performing at the top of your license with best-practice, holistic, patient-centered, evidence-based interdisciplinary palliative medicine.
• Provide palliative care consultations and follow-up visits across the hospital continuum – from high-acuity ED and ICU encounters to ongoing management on medical, surgical, and specialty units.
• Lead goals-of-care and advance care planning conversations with patients and families, coordinating with partner SNFs and/or hospices if and when appropriate.
• Promote evidence-based standards, quality, and consistent documentation across the team — fully integrating into hospital workflows and shaping the palliative medicine practice.
• Give discharge planning as much attention as intake, managing transitions from inpatient to each patient’s next setting based on their longitudinal preferences and best interests.
• Support onboarding, shadowing, case review, quality review, and escalation workflows.
• Build referral relationships and represent NJPCS with hospital partners.

What you bring

• Active New Jersey NP or PA license and national board certification.
• DEA + CDS registration, or ability to obtain by start date.
• Minimum 5 years of palliative care experience.
• 1–2+ years of leadership, mentoring, precepting, team lead, or supervisory experience.
• Palliative care certification (e.g., ACHPN / CHPN) preferred.
• Strong communication, clinical judgment, operational follow-through, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Compensation & total rewards

• Competitive base salary: $160,000–$190,000/year.
• Annual performance bonus up to $25,000, rewarding both productivity (RVUs) and quality of care.
• 28 days of paid time off your first year, growing to 33 days at 2 years, in one flexible bank.
• Malpractice & professional liability ($1M / $3M), license & DEA renewals, up to $1,000/year CME, up to $2,000 tuition reimbursement.
• Medical via Cigna PPO, including a $0/month employee-only option, plus dental, vision, and an HSA.
• Short- and long-term disability, voluntary life & AD&D, and accident / critical-illness / hospital coverage.
• 401(k) retirement plan, plus pre-tax FSA, dependent-care FSA, HSA, and commuter benefits.
• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program, identity-theft protection, legal plan, pet benefits, and member discounts.