Business Development Specialist

Blossom ABA Therapy seeks a Business Development Specialist to expand a healthcare referral network and generate sustainable patient referrals within an assigned territory in Richmond, VA. This onsite role focuses on cultivating professional relationships and managing referral generation through intake and authorization.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, manage, and grow a strategic network of professional referral sources throughout your assigned territory.
• Develop relationships with pediatricians, hospitals, health systems, multi-location practices, diagnostic providers, therapists, schools, and other professionals serving children and families.
• Identify new referral opportunities and create territory-specific plans to develop them.
• Conduct purposeful in-person and virtual meetings with prospective and existing referral partners.
• Educate referral sources on services, eligibility requirements, intake process, locations, and appropriate referral pathways.
• Maintain consistent follow-up with referral partners to strengthen relationships and encourage continued referral activity.
• Reengage inactive referral sources and pursue ways to expand high-performing relationships across departments or locations.
• Build relationships with decision-makers, clinical leaders, referral coordinators, and other professionals who influence patient access.
• Generate qualified patient referrals aligned with the organization’s services and capacity.
• Accurately document every referral, referral source, interaction, and follow-up activity in designated organizational systems.
• Monitor referred patients through the intake and authorization process.
• Collaborate closely with internal Intake and Authorizations teams to identify barriers, support communication, and help prevent referred families from falling through the cracks.
• Keep referral partners appropriately informed while protecting patient privacy and meeting all HIPAA and organizational requirements.
• Analyze referral activity and conversion patterns to determine which relationships and outreach strategies produce meaningful results.
• Maintain an accurate and actionable pipeline of referral opportunities.
• Coordinate or participate in approximately one targeted community or brand-awareness event each month.
• Plan or support one larger, higher-impact event each quarter, selecting events based on their potential to reach families, strengthen professional relationships, or expand awareness within priority communities.
• Follow up with contacts and referral opportunities generated through each event, and evaluate event effectiveness using relationship development, qualified leads, referrals, and other measurable outcomes.

Requirements

• At least 5 years of healthcare business development, physician relations, provider outreach, referral development, or healthcare networking experience.
• Documented success generating patient referrals, not solely general brand awareness, product sales, fundraising, or event attendance.
• Experience developing professional relationships with healthcare providers, hospitals, health systems, multi-location practices, or established referral networks.
• A strong professional résumé demonstrating measurable business-development and referral-generation results.
• Professional references who can speak to relationship-building ability, performance, reliability, and results.
• Experience managing a territory, referral pipeline, outreach schedule, or book of professional relationships.
• Strong written, verbal, presentation, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Excellent organization, documentation, and follow-through.
• Ability to work independently while remaining accountable to goals and reporting expectations.
• Comfort using CRM, referral-tracking, or similar business-development systems.
• Ability and willingness to travel regularly throughout the assigned territory.
• Valid driver’s license and reliable transportation, where required for the territory.

Technologies

• CRM
• Referral-tracking

Preferred Qualifications

• Business development or referral-generation experience in pediatric or children’s healthcare.
• Experience in behavioral health, developmental services, autism services, therapy, diagnostics, or another family-centered healthcare field.
• Existing professional relationships within the assigned territory.
• Experience working with pediatricians, hospital systems, diagnostic providers, specialists, therapists, schools, or multi-location healthcare practices.
• Knowledge of healthcare intake, insurance authorization, and patient-access processes.
• Experience using data to prioritize referral sources and improve conversion results.

What “Success” Looks Like in This Role

• Strong trust, credibility, consistency, and follow-through in healthcare business development.
• Clear examples of professional relationships that resulted in patient referrals.
• Ability to evolve relationships beyond introductions into long-term referral partnerships.
• Ownership of referrals through the intake journey, with ongoing engagement after a referral is generated.
• Comfort being measured on meaningful referral growth and patient-access outcomes.
• Professional representation with senior healthcare leaders and families alike.
• Balanced approach to strategic relationship development and disciplined documentation and pipeline management.
• Motivation to help children and families connect with needed care.

Application Requirements

• A current résumé detailing at least five years of relevant healthcare business development experience.
• Examples of measurable patient-referral or territory-growth results.
• A brief description of the provider types, healthcare networks, or referral channels developed.
• Professional references, requested during the interview process.

Role Details

Location: Richmond, VA (onsite)

Salary: USD 55,000 - 75,000 per year