Description

Position Summary

The Site Medical Director (SMD) provides clinical, operational, and administrative leadership for an academic primary care practice that serves as a clinical training site for Family Medicine residents. The SMD is responsible for ensuring high-quality, patient-centered care while supporting the educational mission of the residency program and the operational and financial performance of the practice. The Site Medical Director provides direct leadership and oversight of faculty physicians, resident physicians, and clinical support staff and serves as the primary physician leader responsible for day-to-day clinical operations. The SMD works collaboratively with residency leadership, practice management, nursing/clinical leadership, and health system leadership to optimize patient access, quality, safety, provider productivity, staffing, scheduling, and the clinical learning environment.

Physician and Resident Leadership

The Site Medical Director:

• Provides day-to-day physician leadership for faculty and resident physicians practicing at the site.
• Serves as a primary resource for clinical, operational, professionalism, workflow, and patient-care concerns.
• Promotes accountability for clinical quality, documentation, productivity, access, patient experience, and organizational expectations.
• Identifies and addresses barriers affecting physician and resident performance.
• Supports faculty development, mentorship, onboarding, engagement, and retention.
• Participates in recruitment, interviewing, onboarding, and integration of new faculty physicians.
• Partners with residency leadership regarding resident performance, supervision, clinical responsibilities, and concerns arising within the ambulatory practice.
• Facilitates communication between faculty, residents, support staff, residency leadership, practice administration, and health system leadership.
• Promotes a collaborative culture emphasizing professionalism, psychological safety, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Clinical Support Staff Leadership

In partnership with practice management and nursing/clinical leadership, the Site Medical Director:

• Provides physician leadership and oversight for medical assistants and other clinical support personnel.
• Establishes expectations for clinical workflows, rooming, medication reconciliation, preventive care, inbox management, patient messaging, prior authorizations, referrals, and care coordination.
• Addresses workflow and performance concerns affecting patient care or provider efficiency.
• Participates in staffing decisions and evaluates clinical staffing needs based on patient volume, provider schedules, and practice demands.
• Works to optimize physician-support staff team structures and appropriate delegation of clinical responsibilities.
• Supports staff development, engagement, retention, and recognition.
• Facilitates resolution of concerns involving physicians, residents, and clinical support staff.

Faculty and Resident Scheduling

The Site Medical Director has primary responsibility for development and oversight of the sites clinical provider schedule, including:

• Developing and maintaining faculty physician clinical schedules.
• Coordinating resident continuity clinic schedules in collaboration with residency leadership.
• Aligning faculty supervision with resident clinic schedules to ensure appropriate supervision and regulatory compliance.
• Managing schedule changes related to vacations, CME, illness, conferences, inpatient responsibilities, educational activities, and other absences.
• Ensuring adequate clinical coverage and continuity during planned and unplanned provider absences.
• Balancing provider availability, resident supervision, patient access, continuity, and operational needs.
• Adjusting templates and clinical capacity based on provider FTE, residency rotations, staffing availability, and patient demand.
• Identifying scheduling inefficiencies and opportunities to improve access and provider utilization.

Paid Time Off and Provider Coverage

The Site Medical Director:

• Reviews and coordinates faculty physician PTO requests.
• Evaluates PTO requests in the context of clinical coverage, resident supervision, patient access, and other faculty absences.
• Maintains equitable and consistent processes for physician time-off requests.
• Coordinates coverage plans for vacations, CME, leave, and unexpected absences.
• Works with administrative leadership regarding PTO balances, carryover, FTE changes, and other provider scheduling considerations.
• Ensures that planned absences do not compromise patient care, resident supervision, or essential practice operations.

Clinical Operations

The Site Medical Director serves as the physician leader for clinical operations and:

• Partners with the Practice Manager to oversee day-to-day practice performance.
• Evaluates provider templates, appointment availability, panel management, patient access, continuity, and clinical capacity.
• Identifies operational bottlenecks and leads implementation of workflow improvements.
• Supports appropriate utilization of physician, APP, nursing, and medical assistant resources.
• Participates in decisions regarding provider FTE, staffing models, clinical space, and resource allocation.
• Develops and standardizes clinical workflows when appropriate.
• Leads or participates in regular faculty and practice meetings.
• Communicates operational and organizational changes to physicians, residents, and staff.

Quality, Patient Safety, and Clinical Performance

The Site Medical Director:

• Promotes evidence-based, high-quality primary care.
• Monitors clinical quality, patient safety, patient experience, access, and provider performance metrics.
• Identifies performance gaps and develops improvement strategies with physicians, residents, staff, and operational leadership.
• Supports population health and preventive care initiatives.
• Reviews significant clinical events, patient complaints, safety concerns, and workflow failures as appropriate.
• Participates in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives.
• Promotes appropriate documentation, coding, risk capture, and clinical practice standards.
• Supports compliance with organizational policies, regulatory requirements, accreditation standards, and residency program requirements.

Academic and Residency Responsibilities

As physician leader of an academic clinical site, the Site Medical Director:

• Maintains a clinical environment that supports both excellent patient care and resident education.
• Ensures adequate faculty supervision and clinical teaching resources for resident continuity clinics.
• Works collaboratively with the Program Director, Associate Program Directors, faculty, and residency coordinators.
• Helps integrate residency educational requirements with practice operational needs.
• Supports resident development in ambulatory medicine, continuity care, population health, quality improvement, practice management, and team-based care.
• Identifies operational or clinical issues affecting the resident learning environment and works with residency leadership to address them.
• Models effective physician leadership, professionalism, interdisciplinary collaboration, and stewardship of healthcare resources.

Financial and Resource Stewardship

In collaboration with administrative leadership, the Site Medical Director:

• Supports responsible management of clinical resources.
• Reviews provider productivity, clinical capacity, patient access, and staffing utilization.
• Participates in discussions regarding provider FTE and recruitment needs.
• Assesses the operational impact of adding or changing physician and staff resources.
• Supports appropriate documentation, coding, and resource utilization.
• Identifies opportunities to improve efficiency while maintaining clinical quality and the educational mission of the practice.
• Participates in strategic planning related to practice growth and development.

Physician Recruitment and Workforce Planning

The Site Medical Director:

• Assesses current and future physician staffing needs.
• Participates in recruitment and interviewing of faculty physicians.
• Provides input regarding provider FTE and clinical capacity.
• Supports onboarding and integration of new physicians into the clinical practice and residency.
• Promotes physician engagement and retention.
• Identifies opportunities for faculty leadership development and succession planning.

Administrative and Organizational Leadership

The Site Medical Director represents the practice and its physicians in interactions with residency, medical group, and health system leadership.

Responsibilities include participation in leadership meetings, communication of organizational priorities to the site, escalation of operational and clinical concerns, implementation of system initiatives, and advocacy for resources necessary to support patient care, physicians, residents, and staff.

The Site Medical Director is expected to function as the primary link between clinical care, residency education, practice operations, and organizational leadership.

Qualifications

• MD or DO degree.
• Board certification in Family Medicine or an appropriate primary care specialty.
• Active and unrestricted medical license.
• Demonstrated experience in physician leadership, clinical operations, or medical education.
• Experience working with resident physicians and graduate medical education preferred.
• Strong interpersonal, communication, conflict-resolution, and organizational skills.
• Ability to lead multidisciplinary teams and manage complex provider and resident scheduling.
• Understanding of quality improvement, patient safety, provider productivity, clinical operations, and healthcare financial principles.

Key Measures of Success

Success in the Site Medical Director role may be evaluated through:

• Clinical quality and patient safety outcomes
• Patient access and continuity
• Patient experience
• Provider productivity and clinical capacity
• Faculty and staff engagement and retention
• Effective faculty and resident scheduling
• Adequacy of resident supervision
• Resident clinical experience and continuity
• Operational efficiency
• Successful recruitment and onboarding
• Effective management of physician PTO and coverage
• Quality improvement performance
• Collaboration between the practice, residency, and health system