Referral Intake Manager

POSITION: Referral Intake Manager

Who We Are:

OptiMed Health Partners optimizes health outcomes and quality of life through personalized and coordinated care. We have been serving patients for over 30 years with a focus on high-quality care in retail pharmacy, specialty pharmacy, and infusion services. The OptiMed Vision reimagines healthcare solutions to achieve unsurpassed value. Our results-oriented culture fosters learning, providing growth opportunities for our employees and exceptional care for our patients in all 50 states.

The Impact of this Role:

The Referral Intake Manager plays a critical role in ensuring timely and accurate onboarding of specialty, Spravato, and infusion patients. By leading and developing high-performing teams, this position directly impacts patient access, experience, and operational efficiency. Through process optimization and collaboration with cross-functional teams, the Referral Intake Manager helps remove barriers to care and supports our mission of delivering exceptional healthcare services.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of 6–8 mid-level direct reports, with indirect oversight of approximately 30 onboarding specialists and clinical support staff.
• Oversee end-to-end referral intake operations, including treatment navigation, referral processing, benefits verification, authorization coordination, and documentation accuracy.
• Monitor workload queues daily and assist with resource management to prevent bottlenecks or backlogs.
• Establish and track performance metrics related to turnaround times, accuracy, productivity, and patient experience.
• Identify operational gaps and lead process improvement initiatives to streamline workflows and reduce errors.
• Develop and maintain SOPs and training materials to ensure efficiency, consistency, and compliance.
• Drive accountability through structured performance management, coaching, and engagement.
• Partner cross-functionally with clinical, billing, and compliance teams to resolve barriers and improve patient access.
• Monitor compliance with regulatory requirements, including HIPAA and applicable healthcare regulations.
• Support change management efforts as systems, payers, and operational priorities evolve.

Who You’ll Be Working With:

You will lead a team of supervisors and nurse case managers, with indirect oversight of onboarding specialists and clinical support staff. This role collaborates closely with clinical, billing, and compliance teams to ensure seamless patient onboarding and care coordination.

Skills and Experience You’ll Bring to the Table:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required; healthcare administration, business, or related field preferred.
• 5+ years of experience in healthcare operations, referral intake, access services, or similar functions.
• Minimum of 3 years of people management experience, preferably leading supervisors or managers.
• Strong analytical skills with ability to monitor KPIs, generate reports, and implement data-driven improvements.
• Proven experience driving process improvements in fast-paced healthcare environments.
• Preferred: Experience in specialty pharmacy, infusion services, or complex care coordination.
• Preferred: Familiarity with payer authorization processes and medical benefit verification.
• Preferred: Lean, Six Sigma, or other process improvement training.

Competencies You’ll Bring to the Table:

• Strong leadership presence and team-building capability.
• Critical thinking and sound judgment.
• Process improvement mindset.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• High attention to detail with ability to manage competing priorities.

Work Environment:

This role operates in a fast-paced healthcare operations environment and may be on-site or limited hybrid.

OptiMed Health Partners provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.