Oncology Infusion Access Recovery Leader

The mandate

The network’s operations executive resigned after internal evidence showed that improving headline chair utilisation concealed longer referral-to-treatment waits and increasing abandonment before authorisation. Local centres reserve capacity differently, pharmacy lead times are disconnected from scheduling, and staff escalate payer denials after treatment dates are already at risk. Several oncologists now route complex patients elsewhere. The interim assumes the enterprise operating seat immediately, while clinical decisions remain with licensed professionals.

The appointment starts within two weeks and runs for eight months through two payer renewal cycles and the winter demand peak. A permanent search begins after the first sixty days, once the board can define the role against a stable access model. The first month establishes referral truth and protects urgent regimens; months two through five rebuild authorisation, scheduling, drug readiness and navigation routines; the final quarter proves control across holidays, absences and demand volatility.

Handover is complete when the successor has chaired six weekly access reviews using a reconciled patient-journey scorecard, every centre operates one clinically governed urgency standard, and ninety-five per cent of accepted referrals have an accountable next action before leaving a queue. The incoming leader must inherit payer playbooks, capacity rules, denial pathways, centre-level demand models, unresolved-risk registers and evidence that service gains did not arise from excluding harder patients.

The interim may standardise access workflows, rebalance non-clinical staffing, consolidate queues, renegotiate temporary support within budget and stop booking practices that create unsafe or unfulfillable commitments. Opening or closing a centre, altering clinical protocols, changing employment terms, removing a medical director, accepting a material payer concession or committing more than USD2 million needs chief-executive and committee approval. Physicians and pharmacists retain all diagnosis, regimen, substitution and clinical-priority authority.

Drug formulary strategy, clinical trial recruitment, oncology pathway design, billing-system replacement and long-range acquisition integration are outside scope. The interim will not make coverage determinations, pressure clinicians to change treatment for throughput, or improve apparent access by rejecting referrals that require difficult authorisation. Work is confined to making the existing twelve-centre network dependable, visible and safe enough for a permanent operator to lead without a continuing recovery office.

Why this seat is open

An executive departure converted a deteriorating access problem into an immediate control gap three months before payer negotiations. Directors no longer trust utilisation and wait-time summaries because accepted, delayed and lost referrals are defined differently by centre. They need a leader who can hold operational authority quickly, protect clinical boundaries and leave a measurable patient-access system for the permanent appointment.

What you will own

• Reconcile referral, authorisation, scheduling, pharmacy, infusion, cancellation and abandonment events into one patient-journey baseline.
• Decide where non-clinical capacity, navigation effort and temporary support move against clinically approved demand priorities.
• Standardise queue ownership, escalation clocks and next-action evidence across all twelve centres and major payer pathways.
• Establish chair-and-drug readiness planning that exposes false utilisation gains, late changes and avoidable preparation waste.
• Chair a weekly access forum joining clinicians, pharmacy, nursing, payer teams and centre operators around named exceptions.
• Test holiday, absence, drug-delay, denial-spike and urgent-regimen scenarios before the winter peak begins.
• Induct the permanent successor through six reviews and transfer playbooks, risk decisions and ninety-day improvement choices.

Candidate qualifications

• Has held enterprise operating authority across multi-site oncology, infusion or similarly complex ambulatory care services.
• Can evidence reduced referral-to-treatment delay without narrowing access or compromising clinical priority and patient safety.
• Understands prior authorisation, specialty pharmacy, chair capacity, nursing constraints, navigation and revenue-cycle handoffs.
• Has reconciled patient-level operational events where local definitions produced misleading network performance reports.
• Can work credibly with oncologists, pharmacists and nurses while maintaining clear executive and licensed-practice boundaries.
• Has led a time-critical healthcare recovery and handed control to a permanent successor through measured operating cycles.

Non-negotiables

• Can start onsite in Boston within two weeks and travel weekly among all twelve centres.
• Will not influence regimen, substitution, clinical urgency or coverage judgment through operational authority.
• Has managed patient access end to end; hospital capacity planning without authorisation experience is insufficient.
• Will disclose referral exclusions, abandonment and delayed starts rather than optimise a chair-utilisation headline.

1. 49 words maximum. Which access metric first revealed that good infusion utilisation was concealing patient delay, and how?
2. 49 words maximum. Confirm your earliest Boston start date and the largest multi-centre recovery you have personally led.
3. 49 words maximum. Describe one operating decision that improved oncology access without crossing a clinical boundary.