Merck Clinical Operations Manager Jobs in Virginia

Valley Vital Care • Regional (Multi-Site) • Full-Time, Salaried, Exempt

Reports To

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Direct Reports

Assistant Clinical Operations Managers (ACOMs), Site Coordinators, Non-Clinical Site Staff

Dotted Line

Director of Nursing, Director of Pharmacy Operations, Compliance Director

Scope

1 large site or 2–3 infusion sites within a defined regional cluster

Travel

~60–75% across assigned sites; minimum weekly presence at each site

FLSA Status

Exempt

The Clinical Operations Manager owns the operational performance of 2–3 infusion sites within a regional cluster. This role serves as the site-level integrator across Intake, Pharmacy, Nursing, and patient experience, accountable for throughput, total cost per dispense, patient and teammate experience, regulatory readiness, and the development of front-line leadership.

This is a hands-on, on-site position for an experienced healthcare operator who thrives in PE-backed, growth-stage environments. The COM is measured on the operational levers that produce the financial outcome—chair utilization, referral conversion, total cost per dispense, patient experience, teammate experience, and regrettable turnover—while functional leaders retain ownership of clinical and pharmacy standards.

Operational Performance

• Drive daily patient throughput and chair utilization across assigned sites; own the site-level operating rhythm including daily huddles, weekly site reviews, and monthly cluster business reviews.

• Manage schedule optimization across nursing capacity, chair availability, pharmacy compounding lead times, and patient appointment patterns to minimize idle chair time and patient wait time.

• Ensure referral-to-treatment cycle time meets cluster targets; coordinate with central Intake to remove queue time, prior authorization friction, and scheduling rework.

• Identify and resolve operational bottlenecks in real time, escalating only what truly requires regional or executive intervention.

Labor & Cost Management

• Align staffing models to volume demand using historical patterns and forward-looking referral data; partner with HR on workforce planning for both organic growth and de novo/acquisition integration.

• Reduce overtime dependency through proactive scheduling and cross-training; minimize agency utilization to a defined ceiling per site.

• Manage non-clinical labor budget and own the variance explanation for total cost per dispense at each assigned site.

• Approve overtime, PTO patterns, and shift swaps within established guardrails.

Patient Experience

• Own the patient journey end-to-end: from initial intake call through treatment completion and discharge. The COM is the named owner when service breakdowns occur, regardless of which function caused them.

• Resolve service breakdowns in real time using a structured service recovery protocol; document patterns and feed them into SOP improvements.

• Ensure consistent patient experience standards across sites within the cluster—environment, staff interactions, education materials, and follow-up communications.

• Own site-level NPS and CAHPS-equivalent measurement and improvement.

People Operations & Teammate Experience

• Own the day-to-day people operations rhythm at every assigned site: hiring partnership with HR, onboarding execution, scheduling fairness, time-and-attendance discipline, PTO and leave administration, and timely performance documentation.

• Partner with HR on workforce planning, role design, compensation discussions for site-level non-clinical staff, and the resolution of employee relations matters at the site level.

• Own teammate experience as a paired outcome with patient experience. Run a regular pulse cadence (formal survey at least bi-annually plus informal check-ins) and act on the signal.

• Ensure every site has a current, documented staffing plan, role definitions, training pathways, and a development conversation for each direct report at least quarterly.

• Hold the standard on people-process basics: timely 1:1s, current job descriptions, clean PTO ledgers, completed compliance trainings, and consistent recognition practices.

Cross-Functional Integration

• Coordinate Intake, Pharmacy, and Nursing workflows at the site level to remove friction at the handoffs, where most operational loss occurs.

• Eliminate bottlenecks across the value stream from referral receipt to treatment delivery; maintain a documented site-level value stream map.

• Drive 95%+ adherence to standardized operating procedures while flagging where the SOP itself is the bottleneck.

• Serve as the single point of contact for referring physician offices regarding scheduling, capacity, and operational issues.

Leadership & Culture

• Directly manage ACOMs and site-level non-clinical staff; partner with the Pharmacist-in-Charge and Nursing Manager at each site under the dyad model.

• Build bench strength and an internal talent pipeline; identify and develop the next generation of ACOMs and site leaders.

• Reinforce an accountability culture—clear standards, direct feedback, and recognition tied to outcomes.

• Lead through influence with clinical staff who do not formally report to the COM; build trust with PICs and nursing managers.

Compliance & Quality

• Ensure audit readiness across assigned sites: ACHC, USP <797>/<800>, state board of pharmacy, DEA, and payer requirements.

• Partner with the Compliance Director and Director of Nursing on regulatory adherence; own corrective and preventive action (CAPA) follow-through at the site level.

• Maintain documentation discipline: incident reports, training records, competency validations, and environmental monitoring logs.

Growth Through Relationships

• Be the operational face of Valley Vital Care to the referring physician community. Maintain active relationships with the top referrers in each cluster and address operational friction before it costs the platform volume.

• Partner with Sales and the broader provider relations team to surface relationship signals from the field—capacity feedback, referral patterns, payer issues—and translate them into operational action.

• Support de novo site activation through community and referrer relationship-building: pre-opening introductions to physician offices, payer onboarding coordination, and community presence ahead of go-live.

• Support acquisition integration by becoming the trusted operational counterpart for inherited site leadership and the referring providers they serve; preserve referral continuity through the transition.

• 90-Day Organizational Assessment – Within the first 90 days, deliver a written organizational assessment of the assigned cluster to the COO covering: site-by-site operational state, talent assessment of direct reports and dyad partners, top three friction points per site and at the cluster level, and a proposed 12-month operating plan with quarterly milestones.

• Annual Operating Plan – Maintained, reviewed quarterly with the COO, and updated against MBO performance.

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree (MBA, MHA, MSN) preferred.

• 5+ years of progressive operational leadership in healthcare, with at least 2 years owning multi-site or multi-unit responsibility.

• Demonstrated experience operating in a PE-backed, growth-stage, or comparable high-tempo healthcare environment.

• Track record of operational improvement using structured methods (Lean, Six Sigma, or equivalent operating system experience).

• Comfort with operational data: KPI dashboards, basic financial statements, and scheduling analytics.

• Direct infusion, ambulatory infusion, or specialty pharmacy operations experience.

• Experience integrating acquired sites.

• Experience activating de novo healthcare sites.

• On-site presence required at each assigned site, minimum weekly cadence.

• Travel ~60–75% within the assigned regional cluster.

• Occasional travel to corporate office and other regional clusters.

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