The Operations Lieutenant is a high-impact, multi-disciplined operator who serves as the organization’s go-to resource for rapid deployment, operational triage, and cross-functional execution. Unlike a traditional specialized role, the Operations Lieutenant is intentionally generalist: a “swiss-army-knife” leader who can step into any revenue cycle function, client engagement, or operational crisis and immediately add value.
Reporting to senior leadership, this individual is embedded where the need is greatest: parachuting into struggling client engagements, backfilling leadership gaps, standing up new workflows, leading high-priority projects, and driving change in environments that require immediate stabilization. The Operations Lieutenant operates without a rigid functional boundary and is defined not by a single lane, but by the ability to perform in any of them.
This role demands a rare combination of deep revenue cycle expertise, unflappable composure under pressure, executive-level communication, and the adaptability to shift from strategic planning to hands-on execution within the same week. The right candidate thrives in ambiguity, earns trust quickly, and leaves every engagement better than they found it.
Duties and Responsibilities
Rapid-Response Operations and Crisis Stabilization
- Know, understand, incorporate, and demonstrate the Healthrise Core Values in all interactions with team members, clients, and stakeholders.
- Deploy on short notice to client sites or internal operations experiencing performance breakdowns, leadership vacancies, or go-live turbulence requiring immediate stabilization.
- Serve as interim operational lead for billing, AR, coding, denials, or client delivery functions when permanent leadership is absent, transitioning, or overwhelmed.
- Conduct rapid operational assessments within 48–72 hours of deployment, identify root causes, surface risk, and present a prioritized remediation plan to leadership.
- Take ownership of critical work queues, escalated accounts, and stalled workflows, working alongside frontline staff to close gaps and restore throughput.
- Establish immediate stabilization metrics and a daily communication cadence with senior leadership during crisis engagements.
- Transition stabilized operations back to permanent leaders with documented handoff plans, updated SOPs, and performance baselines in place.
Cross-Functional Revenue Cycle Execution
- Perform and oversee hands-on revenue cycle work across all functional areas as needed, including charge capture review, claim generation and editing, AR follow-up, denial analysis and appeals, underpayment recovery, and cash posting reconciliation.
- Navigate multiple EMR/PM platforms, including Epic, Cerner, Meditech, Athena, or equivalent systems, and adapt quickly to new systems, payer portals, and proprietary RCM tools.
- Apply current knowledge of CPT, ICD-10-CM, HCPCS, CMS guidelines, and payer-specific billing rules to resolve complex claim and reimbursement issues.
- Support coding quality reviews, documentation improvement initiatives, and denial root-cause analyses across HB and PB environments.
- Investigate underpayment trends, payer contract variances, and systemic billing errors; coordinate corrective action with internal teams and client stakeholders.
- Stay current on coding updates, CMS billing guidelines, and payer policy changes that impact claim accuracy.
Client Engagement and Relationship Support
- Step into client-facing roles as needed, serving as interim client success manager, operational liaison, or executive escalation point when capacity or continuity is at risk.
- Participate in or lead executive business reviews, operational steering committees, and client working sessions on behalf of senior leadership when required.
- Build rapid trust with client stakeholders through transparency, responsiveness, and demonstrated operational command, even in high-pressure environments.
- Identify and communicate client satisfaction risks, SLA exposure, and relationship red flags to leadership; develop and execute remediation plans.
- Support new client onboarding, system conversions, and go-live activations as an embedded operational lead or subject matter expert.
Project Leadership and Strategic Initiative Execution
- Lead or co-lead high-priority operational projects assigned by senior leadership, including service line launches, automation deployments, workflow redesigns, system integrations, and performance improvement initiatives.
- Develop and manage project plans, milestone tracking, issue logs, and stakeholder communication for all assigned initiatives.
- Apply Lean, Six Sigma, or equivalent continuous improvement methodologies to identify inefficiencies, eliminate waste, and design scalable operational solutions.
- Serve as subject matter expert and implementation lead for technology or automation initiatives, including RPA, AI-assisted coding, prior authorization tools, and other tools rolled out across client or internal operations.
- Produce executive-ready deliverables, including performance dashboards, operational assessments, root cause analyses, project status reports, and post-implementation reviews.
Interim People Leadership and Team Support
- Provide direct supervisory coverage for billing, AR, coding, or client delivery teams when permanent leadership is unavailable or in transition.
- Onboard, orient, and coach staff during periods of leadership change; reinforce performance expectations, quality standards, and cultural norms.
- Identify skill gaps, performance concerns, and morale issues within deployed teams; escalate formally to HR and senior leadership as appropriate.
- Mentor various levels of staff, including directors, managers, supervisors, and frontline staff, in revenue cycle best practices, critical thinking, and professional development.
- Support workforce planning, capacity management, and staffing gap analysis at the direction of senior leadership.
Compliance, Quality, and Continuous Improvement
- Ensure all revenue cycle activities executed during any deployment remain in compliance with applicable federal and state billing regulations, HIPAA, payer policies, and organizational standards.
- Conduct or support coding and billing audits; document findings and implement corrective action in collaboration with compliance and clinical leadership.
- Develop, update, and operationalize SOPs, job aids, and training materials as a byproduct of each deployment to support sustained performance.
- Identify, recommend, and implement process improvements that are measurable, scalable, and sustainable beyond the immediate engagement.
- Maintain a working knowledge of applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
