Vice President, Business Development (Referral Partnerships)

Behavioral Health Group - BHG; Dallas (TX); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Behavioral Health Group is seeking a Vice President, Market Development to lead and scale our referral growth engine across markets. You will grow patient referrals, admissions, census, and market penetration through CMDs and ROMs, while partnering with key stakeholders to drive sustainable growth and improved access to care.

The ideal candidate has deep healthcare market expertise, exceptional leadership, strong analytical skills, and a proven track record of building scalable, high-performing

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required.
• 10+ years of healthcare business development, provider relations, referral development, market development, or growth leadership experience.
• 5+ years leading multi-market field teams.
• Proven success driving patient referrals, admissions growth, and market expansion.
• Strong experience developing and executing data-driven growth strategies.
• Experience building and leading high-performing referral development organizations.
• Strong business acumen, analytical capabilities, and operational discipline.
• Proven ability to translate strategy into measurable field execution.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute enterprise referral growth strategy across all markets.
• Lead CMDs and ROMs to drive referrals, admissions, and market penetration.
• Oversee regional referral development strategies across hospitals, behavioral health providers, PCPs, EDs, and community orgs.
• Develop growth plans and monitor performance against targets.
• Establish CRM as the operating system for the referral growth organization and forecast accuracy.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic planning

Analytical skills

Relationship building

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

• Support CMDs in developing strategic referral partnerships capable of generating significant patient volume.

BHG is seeking a Vice President, Market Development to lead and scale the organization's referral growth engine across all markets. This leader is responsible for growing patient referrals, admissions, census, and market penetration through the leadership and development of Clinical & Market Development Directors (CMDs) and Regional Operations Managers (ROMs).

Success in this role is measured by the organization's ability to develop high-value referral relationships, expand market presence, increase patient access to care, and generate sustainable admissions growth.

The Vice President, Clinical & Market Development serves as the leader of BHG's referral development organization, ensuring the successful execution of referral growth strategies, market development initiatives, community engagement efforts, and referral network expansion across all markets.

This role requires a highly strategic and operationally disciplined leader who can translate enterprise growth objectives into measurable field execution. The ideal candidate possesses deep healthcare market expertise, exceptional leadership capabilities, strong analytical skills, and a proven track record of building scalable, high-performing referral development organizations.

The Vice President will partner closely with Strategic Partnerships, Operations, Clinical Leadership, Marketing, Performance Insights, and Executive Leadership to drive sustainable growth, strengthen referral pathways, and improve patient access to care.

Key Responsibilities

Referral Growth Strategy & Leadership

• Develop and execute BHG's enterprise referral growth strategy across all markets.
• Establish annual, quarterly, and monthly referral growth objectives aligned with enterprise goals.
• Lead the organization's efforts to increase patient referrals, admissions, and market penetration.
• Build and scale a high-performing referral development organization focused on sustainable growth.
• Drive a culture of accountability, relationship excellence, community engagement, and performance-driven execution.

Referral Network Development & Market Growth

• Oversee regional referral development strategies across key referral channels, including:
  • Hospitals and health systems
  • Behavioral health providers
  • Primary care organizations
  • Emergency departments
  • Criminal justice organizations
  • Community agencies
  • Employers
  • Government organizations
  • Recovery and social service organizations
• Ensure effective growth and retention of referral relationships across all markets.
• Support CMDs in developing strategic referral partnerships capable of generating significant patient volume.
• Identify and activate new referral pathways that increase patient access and drive admissions growth.

Market Development & Strategic Planning

• Lead regional and market-level growth planning initiatives.
• Implement strategic account planning processes across the field organization.
• Develop referral-source segmentation strategies to prioritize high-opportunity accounts and growth channels.
• Optimize territory alignment and market coverage to maximize referral potential.
• Identify white-space opportunities, underserved patient populations, and emerging referral channels.
• Develop growth plans for underperforming markets and monitor execution against performance targets.

Team Leadership & Development

• Directly lead and develop Clinical & Market Development Directors (CMDs) and Regional Operations Managers (ROMs).
• Establish clear performance expectations, accountability standards, and growth objectives.
• Conduct regular business reviews, performance evaluations, and coaching sessions.
• Recruit, develop, and retain top referral growth talent.
• Build organizational capabilities that support long-term scalability, succession planning, and continuous improvement.

CRM Excellence, Pipeline Management & Forecasting

• Establish CRM as the operating system for the referral growth organization.
• Drive accountability for CRM utilization, activity tracking, data quality, and reporting.
• Develop standardized pipeline management and forecasting practices across all markets.
• Monitor referral pipeline health, referral source activity, conversion rates, and growth opportunities.
• Ensure visibility into referral performance and forecasting accuracy at the market, regional, and enterprise levels.
• Utilize data and analytics to optimize resource allocation and growth initiatives.

Referral Analytics & Performance Insights

• Partner closely with Performance Insights to identify referral leakage, conversion opportunities, and market-specific growth initiatives.
• Analyze referral trends, source performance, market penetration, and patient acquisition patterns.
• Identify barriers to referral conversion and implement corrective actions.
• Develop actionable growth strategies based on referral analytics and performance data.
• Provide executive leadership with meaningful insights and growth recommendations.

Competitive Intelligence & Market Insights

• Maintain a comprehensive understanding of referral patterns, market dynamics, and competitive activity across all markets.
• Monitor competitor developments, referral trends, service-line expansions, and emerging growth opportunities.
• Identify market risks and opportunities that impact patient acquisition and referral growth.
• Provide strategic recommendations to executive leadership based on market intelligence and field observations.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Operations to align referral growth objectives with market capacity and operational performance.
• Collaborate with Regional Leadership to strengthen referral partner confidence and improve patient outcomes.
• Work closely with Marketing to support market awareness, community engagement, and growth initiatives.
• Coordinate with the Strategic Partnerships team to maximize enterprise partnership opportunities and referral growth.
• Ensure alignment between referral growth strategies and enterprise objectives.

Travel

This role requires regular travel (40-60%) across BHG markets to support field teams, strategic growth initiatives, and leadership engagement.

Success Metrics

Referral Growth

• Referral volume growth
• Active referral source growth
• Strategic referral source development
• Referral source retention and expansion
• Referral pipeline growth

Admissions & Market Growth

• Admissions growth
• Census growth
• Market penetration
• Market share expansion
• Same-market growth performance

Referral Excellence

• Referral conversion rates
• Referral leakage reduction
• Pipeline health
• Forecast accuracy
• CRM adoption and data integrity
• Territory coverage effectiveness

Leadership Effectiveness

• Team productivity
• Employee engagement and retention
• Talent development and succession planning
• Achievement of market growth objectives

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree required.
• 10+ years of healthcare business development, provider relations, referral development, market development, or growth leadership experience.
• 5+ years leading multi-market field teams.
• Demonstrated success driving patient referrals, admissions growth, and market expansion.
• Strong experience developing and executing data-driven growth strategies.
• Experience building and leading high-performing referral development organizations.
• Strong business acumen, analytical capabilities, and operational discipline.
• Proven ability to translate strategy into measurable field execution.

Preferred

• Experience in behavioral health, addiction treatment, mental health, healthcare services, post-acute care, or other multi-site healthcare organizations.
• Experience working with hospitals, health systems, physician groups, managed care organizations, community organizations, and referral networks.
• Experience in private equity-backed healthcare organizations.
• Experience leading growth transformations and large-scale market development initiatives.

Physical Requirements And Working Conditions

• A variable workload, periodic high activity level.
• Vision adequate to read correspondence, computer screen, forms, etc.
• Sit for long periods of time, some bending, stooping and stretching
• Speaking and hearing ability sufficient to communicate effectively by phone or in person at normal volumes
• Keyboarding for long periods of time

BHG is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer providing equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other legally protected basis, in accordance with applicable law.

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