Vice President, Business Development (Referral Partnerships)

Behavioral Health Group is seeking a Vice President, Business Development to lead and scale the organization’s referral growth engine across all markets. This role drives growth in patient referrals, admissions, census, and market penetration by leading Clinical & Market Development Directors (CMDs) and Regional Operations Managers (ROMs), partnering cross-functionally to execute referral growth strategies, and improving patient access to care.

Role Overview

The Vice President, Business Development (Referral Partnerships) will develop and execute an enterprise-wide referral growth strategy, set clear growth objectives on annual, quarterly, and monthly cycles, and build a high-performing referral development organization focused on sustainable, measurable expansion across key referral channels.

Key Responsibilities

• 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 efforts to increase patient referrals, admissions, and market penetration.
• Build and scale a referral development organization focused on sustainable growth.
• Drive a culture emphasizing accountability, relationship excellence, community engagement, and performance-driven execution.
• 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 to increase patient access and admissions growth.
• Lead regional and market-level growth planning initiatives, including implementation of strategic account planning processes.
• 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.
• Directly lead and develop CMDs and ROMs, setting expectations, accountability standards, and growth objectives.
• Conduct regular business reviews, performance evaluations, and coaching sessions.
• Recruit, develop, and retain referral growth talent.
• Build organizational capabilities that support long-term scalability, succession planning, and continuous improvement.
• Establish CRM as the operating system for the referral growth organization, driving accountability for utilization, activity tracking, data quality, and reporting.
• Develop standardized pipeline management and forecasting practices across all markets, monitoring pipeline health, conversion rates, and referral-source activity.
• Utilize data and analytics to optimize resource allocation and growth initiatives.
• Partner 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; address barriers to conversion and implement corrective actions.
• Provide executive leadership with meaningful insights and growth recommendations, maintaining situational awareness of referral patterns, market dynamics, and competitive activity.
• Partner with Operations and collaborate with Regional Leadership and Marketing to align referral growth objectives with market capacity, strengthen partner confidence, improve patient outcomes, and support market awareness and community engagement.
• Coordinate with the Strategic Partnerships team to maximize enterprise partnership opportunities and ensure alignment with enterprise objectives.

Travel

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

Required 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.
• 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 Qualifications

• 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.

Salary

USD 180,000 - 280,000 per year.

Benefits

• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Disability insurance
• Employee discount
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Prescription drug insurance
• Referral program
• Retirement plan
• Tuition reimbursement
• Vision insurance

Performance Measures

• 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

Work Location and Working Conditions

• Work location: Remote
• Working conditions: variable workload with periodic high activity level
• Vision: adequate to read correspondence, computer screens, forms, and similar materials
• Physical demands: sit for long periods of time; some bending, stooping, and stretching
• Communication: speaking and hearing ability sufficient to communicate effectively by phone or in person at normal volumes
• Computer use: keyboarding for long periods of time

Education

Bachelor’s degree.