Manager, Scheduling Strategy & Optimization

At LifeStance Health, we strive to help individuals, families, and communities with their mental health needs. Everywhere. Every day. It’s a lofty goal; we know. But we make it happen with the best team in mental healthcare. Thank you for taking the time to explore a career with us. As the fastest growing mental health practice group in the country, now is the perfect time to join our team! LifeStance Health Values Belonging: We cultivate a space where everyone can show up as their authentic self. Empathy: We seek out diverse perspectives and listen to learn without judgment. Courage: We are all accountable for doing the right thing - even when it's hard - because we know it's worth it. One Team: We realize our full potential when we work together towards our shared purpose. Benefits As a full-time employee of LifeStance Health, the following benefits are offered: medical, dental, vision, AD&D, short and long-term disability, and life insurance. Additional benefits include a 401k retirement savings with employer match, paid parental leave, paid time off, holiday pay and an Employee Assistance Program. Job Summary: As a Manager, Scheduling Strategy & Optimization at LifeStance Health, you will play a critical role in standing up and scaling a centralized schedule template build function that supports clinicians during onboarding and enables ongoing schedule template updates as needs evolve. This role will be responsible for designing the operating model, defining business requirements and clinician needs, and creating a repeatable, scalable process for how schedule template build requests are submitted , reviewed, prioritized, completed, and monitored . In addition to standing up the centralized build function, this leader will help identify and implement schedule template optimization opportunities that improve clinician utilization , patient access, and operational consistency across markets. The Manager will partner closely with Practice Operations, Clinical leadership, Technology, EHR implementation teams, and other cross-functional stakeholders to operationalize the process, establish clear decision rights and service expectations, and ensure the function supports clinician experience, patient access, and schedule utilization. This role is ideal for a highly organized, process-oriented leader who can move from ambiguity to structure, translate operational needs into clear requirements, build strong stakeholder relationships, and lead a team through the creation of a new centralized capability. Responsibilities: Lead the design, launch, and ongoing optimization of a centralized schedule template build function to support new clinician onboarding and ongoing clinician schedule template updates. Define the end-to-end operating model for schedule template build requests, including intake, approval, prioritization, completion, quality review, escalation, and performance tracking. Partner with Practice Operations, Clinical leadership , Technology, EHR implementation teams, and other stakeholders to define business requirements, clinician needs, system constraints, and operational dependencies. Create and maintain repeatable, scalable SOPs, workflows, job aids, and team processes that enable consistent schedule template build execution across markets and service lines. Establish clear service expectations, SLAs, decision rights, escalation pathways, and stakeholder communication routines for the centralized schedule build process. Build, manage, and develop a team of schedule build analysts responsible for completing clinician schedule template builds and updates accurately, timely , and consistently. Develop strong relationships with local operational teams and clinicians to understand pain points, gather feedback, support adoption, and continuously improve the centralized process. Monitor process performance, team capacity, request volume, turnaround times, quality outcomes, and stakeholder feedback to identify opportunities for improvement and inform future resourcing needs. Analyze clinician schedule templates, operational feedback, and access/utilization trends to identify opportunities to improve schedule design, template consistency, clinician capacity utilization , and patient access. Lead schedule template optimization initiatives in partnership with local operations, clinicians, Practice Operations, Clinical leadership, and Technology, ensuring changes are operationally feasible and aligned to business priorities. Develop and refine scalable processes, standards, and feedback loops that enable continuous improvement of schedule template design and centralized build operations over time. Translate operational insights and process performance into clear recommendations, updates, and materials for senior leadership and cross-functional partners. Drive projects from concept through implementation by creating clear workplans, managing dependencies, resolving blockers, and ensuring successful operational handoff . Required Skills/Abilities: Strong process design and operational implementation skills, with the ability to build structure, workflows, and SOPs from ambiguous or evolving business needs. Proven ability to work cross-functionally with operational, clinical, technical, and leadership stakeholders to define requirements, align on decisions, and drive execution. Ability to translate clinician needs and business requirements into practical, scalable operating processes. Strong people leadership skills, including the ability to hire, train, manage, and develop a team responsible for high-volume operational execution. Excellent project management skills, including the ability to manage workplans, dependencies, timelines, risks, and stakeholder communication. Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to synthesize complex information into clear recommendations, process documentation, and leadership-ready materials. Comfort working in systems-oriented environments and partnering with technology teams to operationalize new workflows, tools, forms, dashboards, or service desk processes. Strong judgment and problem-solving skills, with the ability to balance clinician experience, operational consistency, patient access, and scalability. Ability to build trusted relationships with local operations teams, clinicians, and cross-functional partners. Demonstrates inclusivity, cultural awareness, and the ability to work effectively with diverse teams. Ability to evaluate operational workflows and clinician schedule templates to identify process optimization opportunities that improve utilization , access, consistency, and scalability. Travel: As needed to support projects or key meetings; up to 30% Education and Experience: Bachelor’s degree required . Minimum of 5 years of experience in healthcare scheduling operations . Prior people management experience required . Experience with EHR (preferably athena ) , scheduling, service desk, or workflow management processes required . Experience building or scaling a centralized operational function, shared service, or support team required . Experience developing SOPs, workflows, business requirements, service expectations, or operational playbooks required . Experience partnering with clinical, operational, and technology stakeholders preferred. Experience working closely with senior leadership and cross-functional stakeholders required . Experience with optimizing supply and demand dynamics or scheduling optimization required . Physical Requirements: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of the job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit, stand, bend, talk and hear . The employee is frequently required to walk. The employee must be able to lift and/or move objects up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and the ability to adjust focus. COMPENSATION: $100,000 - $120,000/annually in addition to a competitive bonus plan LifeStance provides the compensation range and benefits that it in good faith believes it might pay and/or offer for this position. LifeStance reserves the right to ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and offer additional benefits and other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant’s sex or other status protected by local, state, or federal law. #LI-TS1 LifeStance is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are fully committed to creating an inclusive work environment for all our employees. Learn more about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at LifeStance. LifeStance Health complies with federal and state disability laws and makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact our Human Resources Team at [email protected] . Please note: This contact is intended solely for accommodation requests. Inquiries regarding applications, resumes and applicant status should not be sent to this email address as they will not be reviewed or responded to. To apply for a position, please use our official careers page .