System Director Physician Compensation

Description

Your passion belongs at UNC Health. Join more than 56,000 teammates working together to improve the health and well-being of the communities we serve across North Carolina.

Summary:
The System Director Physician Compensation provides strategic and operational leadership for all aspects of physician compensation across a large, multi-hospital, multi-specialty health system. This role designs, implements, and maintains fair, competitive, and compliant Physician compensation programs that support organizational strategy, clinical integration, quality outcomes, and financial sustainability. The director partners closely with executive leadership, finance, legal, compliance, and physician enterprise leadership to ensure compensation arrangements are aligned with internal comparisons, market benchmarks, regulatory requirements (e.g., Stark, Anti-Kickback), and system-wide performance goals.

The ideal candidate brings extensive physician compensation expertise, strong healthcare business acumen, and demonstrated leadership experience, with the ability to develop high-performing teams while remaining a hands-on subject matter expert. A collaborative and strategic approach, sound judgment, and the ability to navigate complex compensation matters while building trusted relationships with physicians and executive leaders are highly valued.

Responsibilities:
Strategic Leadership & Program Design: Develop and lead the overall physician compensation strategy aligned with organizational goals, clinical integration, and population health initiatives. Design and maintain compensation models (e.g., productivity-based, value-based, hybrid plans, call pay, leadership stipends) for employed and affiliated physicians. Integrate quality, patient experience, and access metrics into compensation plans to support value-based care and system priorities. Advise executive leadership on the financial and operational implications of compensation strategies, including scenario modeling and long-term planning.
Compensation Plan Management: Oversee the development, implementation, and annual review of all physician compensation plans across the enterprise. Ensure internal equity and external competitiveness by regularly benchmarking against national and regional market data (e.g., MGMA, SullivanCotter, AMGA). Standardize compensation frameworks where appropriate, while allowing for specialty-specific and market-specific customization. Manage on-call, hospital-based services, medical directorships, and other service arrangements to ensure consistency, fairness, and compliance.
Regulatory Compliance & Governance: Ensure all compensation arrangements comply with Stark Law, Anti-Kickback Statute, IRS guidelines for not-for-profit entities, and other applicable regulations. Partner with legal and compliance to obtain and maintain fair market value (FMV) and commercial reasonableness (CR) opinions for compensation arrangements. Develop and maintain governance structures (e.g., Physician Compensation Committee) and policies for review, approval, and oversight of compensation plans. Maintain documentation and audit trails for compensation decisions, methodologies, and approvals.
Analytics, Reporting, & Financial Management:Lead the development of Physician compensation analytics and dashboards to monitor productivity, compensation ratios, incentives, and alignment with budget. Collaborate with finance to model the financial impact of compensation changes, new programs, and physician alignment strategies. Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as wRVUs, panel size, quality metrics, and compensation per wRVU to identify trends and issues. Provide regular reports and presentations to executive leadership, physician leaders, and governance committees.
Stakeholder Engagement & Communication:Serve as primary subject matter expert and advisor to physician leaders, practice administrators, HR, and finance on physician compensation matters. Facilitate communication and education for physicians regarding compensation plans, performance metrics, and changes. Partner with physician recruitment and onboarding teams to ensure offers are consistent with compensation philosophy, FMV, and internal equity. Partner with executive compensation to incorporate physician compensation data into executive offers and ensure consistency and fairness internally and with market. Support conflict resolution related to compensation concerns by providing transparent data and clear explanations of methodologies.
Process Improvement:Establish and refine processes for Physician compensation plan design, implementation, monitoring, and annual review. Promote continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to streamline processes, enhance data integrity, and improve user experience. Collaborate across HR, IT, and operations to ensure systems (e.g., payroll, HRIS, practice management, EMR) support accurate and timely compensation calculations.

Other information:
Education Requirements:
* Bachelor's degree in an appropriate discipline required.
Licensure/Certification Requirements:
* No licensure or certification required.
Professional Experience Requirements:
* Requires seven (7) years of related experience with at least five (5) years of management experience.
Knowledge/Skills/and Abilities Requirements:
* Knowledge of physician compensation structures, benchmarks, and best practices.
* Strong understanding of Stark Law, Anti-Kickback Statute, and related regulatory frameworks.
* Advanced analytical skills, such as modeling, forecasting, and interpreting complex data.
* Excellent communication and presentation skills, with ability to explain complex concepts to both clinical and non-clinical audiences.
* Strong relationship-building skills and ability to influence and collaborate with senior leaders and physicians.
* Integrity and discretion, with commitment to fairness, transparency, and compliance.
* Proficiency with Excel and analytics tools; familiarity with HRIS, payroll, and practice management systems.

Legal Employer: NCHEALTH

Entity: Shared Services

Organization Unit: UNC Physician Admin

Work Type: Full Time

Standard Hours Per Week: 40.00

Pay offers are determined by experience and internal equity

Work Assignment Type: Hybrid

Work Schedule: Day Job

Location of Job: US:NC:Morrisville

Exempt From Overtime: Exempt: Yes

This position is employed by NC Health (Rex Healthcare, Inc., d/b/a NC Health), a private, fully-owned subsidiary of UNC Health Care System, in a department that provides shared services to operations across UNC Health Care; except that, if you are currently a UNCHCS State employee already working in a designated shared services department, you may remain a UNCHCS State employee if selected for this job.

Qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, status as a protected veteran or political affiliation.

UNC Health makes reasonable accommodations for applicants' and employees' religious practices and beliefs, as well as applicants and employees with disabilities. All interested applicants are invited to apply for career opportunities. Please email applicant.accommodations@unchealth.unc.edu if you need a reasonable accommodation to search and/or to apply for a career opportunity.