JOB PURPOSE
The Senior Manager of Outside Lab Operations is the enterprise business owner responsible for translating Affordable Care's outside lab strategy into reliable field execution, sustained adoption, strong vendor performance, and measurable financial and patient-care outcomes.
This role owns the outside lab program from implementation through business-as-usual management. The Senior Manager establishes the operating model, coordinates cross-functional execution, drives practice adoption of preferred vendors and workflows, manages performance through clear service levels and scorecards, and ensures issues are resolved quickly and permanently.
The Senior Manager partners closely with Lab Operations, Field Operations, Clinical, Procurement, Finance, IT, Training, Compliance, preferred outside lab partners, and practice teams. The role reports to the Director of Lab Operations and serves as the single point of accountability for the health and results of the outside lab program.
Note: This role does not perform clinical case selection or replace Procurement's commercial authority. It owns program execution, operating performance, adoption, governance, and value realization, with clinical standards owned by Clinical and contracts and negotiations led in partnership with Procurement.
GENERAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Outside Lab Program Ownership
Serve as the end-to-end business owner for the enterprise outside lab program, from rollout and stabilization through ongoing operations and continuous improvement.
Translate outside lab strategy into a clear operating roadmap with milestones, owners, dependencies, risks, decisions, and measurable outcomes.
Establish decision rights and governance across Lab Operations, Field Operations, Clinical, Procurement, Finance, IT, Training, Compliance, vendors, and practices.
Maintain a disciplined operating cadence, including implementation reviews, performance reviews, issue escalation, decision logs, and executive updates.
Own closure of cross-functional actions and escalate material risks early when work is off-track, under-resourced, or unclear.
Ensure the program evolves from a launch initiative into a durable, scalable operating capability.
Practice Adoption & Spend Compliance
Drive practice adoption of preferred outside lab partners, approved product categories, ordering channels, and standard workflows.
Identify practices and regions with off-contract spend, low adoption, or workflow noncompliance; diagnose root causes and coordinate targeted interventions.
Develop practical adoption plans with field leaders and practice teams, including clear expectations, communications, training, reinforcement, and escalation paths.
Monitor adoption by practice, territory, division, vendor, and product category and convert exceptions into owner-based action plans.
Partner with Field Operations and Lab leadership to reduce unnecessary local variation while preserving appropriate clinical judgment and patient-specific flexibility.
Create feedback loops that surface practice pain points and translate them into workflow, training, technology, or vendor improvements.
Vendor Performance & Service Management
Own the operating relationship with preferred outside lab partners after contracting, in partnership with Procurement and Clinical.
Establish and manage vendor scorecards covering quality, turnaround time, remakes, case acceptance, service responsiveness, issue resolution, invoice accuracy, and other agreed service levels.
Lead recurring vendor performance reviews, document commitments, and ensure corrective actions are completed and sustained.
Coordinate rapid resolution of systemic service failures and high-impact case escalations, while building mechanisms that prevent recurrence.
Partner with Procurement on contract compliance, pricing issues, volume commitments, and commercial opportunities; provide the operational facts needed for negotiations.
Maintain appropriate vendor contingency and capacity plans to protect patient care and practice operations.
Workflow, Technology & Operational Readiness
Own the end-to-end operating workflow for outside lab cases, including ordering, case submission, digital scanning, ticketing, status visibility, delivery, escalation, invoicing, and performance reporting.
Lead operational implementation and ongoing optimization of enabling platforms and integrations, including Dentira, vendor portals, scanner workflows, Salesforce ticketing, and relevant practice systems.
Ensure workflows are clinic-ready, clearly documented, tested with practices, and supported by reliable escalation paths before broader deployment.
Coordinate pilots and phased rollouts; define success criteria, collect feedback, resolve readiness gaps, and make scale, pause, or redesign recommendations.
Partner with IT and vendors to prioritize defects, enhancements, data needs, integrations, and user-experience improvements based on business value and field impact.
Maintain current SOPs, playbooks, role clarity, and process controls for all material outside lab workflows.
Training, Communications & Change Management
Partner with Training, Field Operations, Clinical, and vendors to build and maintain role-based training for practice teams, field leaders, and support functions.
Ensure training content and live vendor instruction are aligned to approved workflows, clinical standards, platform requirements, and escalation processes.
Develop launch and reinforcement communications that make the required action, rationale, timing, and support model clear.
Use adoption and performance data to target retraining and reinforcement where it will have the greatest impact.
Validate training effectiveness through workflow observation, user feedback, adoption trends, and operating results.
Build sustainable onboarding and refresher mechanisms so performance does not depend on one-time launch activity or tribal knowledge.
Analytics, Value Capture & Executive Reporting
Own the outside lab performance and value-capture scorecard, with clear definitions, targets, owners, and reporting cadence.
Track contracted versus off-contract spend, preferred-vendor penetration, savings realization, volume migration, quality, turnaround time, remakes, service performance, adoption, and patient or practice impact.
Partner with Finance and Procurement to validate baselines, savings methodology, forecasts, and realized financial impact.
Quantify value leakage and prioritize actions based on financial impact, patient experience, operational risk, and feasibility.
Translate performance trends into concise 'so what / now what' recommendations for Lab, Operations, and executive leadership.
Maintain a clear view of program risks, decisions needed, near-term priorities, and expected value delivery.
Continuous Improvement & Program Maturation
Build a structured improvement backlog informed by data, practice feedback, vendor performance, clinical input, and frontline observation.
Prioritize improvements that simplify practice workflows, improve quality and turnaround time, reduce remakes and escalations, strengthen compliance, or increase value capture.
Standardize proven improvements and embed them into SOPs, technology, training, scorecards, and operating routines.
Benchmark vendors and workflows, evaluate new capabilities, and recommend changes to the vendor portfolio or operating model when evidence supports them.
Ensure lessons from pilots, escalations, and performance reviews are converted into durable process changes.
Reinforce a culture of accountability, simplicity, partnership, and measurable outcomes across the program.
MEASURES OF SUCCESS
Sustained migration of eligible spend to preferred outside lab partners and approved workflows
Realization of validated savings and value-capture targets
Improved vendor quality, turnaround time, service responsiveness, and invoice accuracy
Reduced remakes, escalations, workflow failures, and avoidable practice friction
High practice adoption of Dentira, approved scanner workflows, Salesforce ticketing, and other enabling tools
Clear ownership, faster decisions, and reliable closure of cross-functional actions
Accurate, actionable scorecards with transparent performance and value visibility
Effective training, onboarding, and reinforcement that sustain compliance over time
Strong confidence from practices, field leaders, functional partners, and vendors in program leadership
EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS / EXPERIENCE
Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Operations, Healthcare Management, Supply Chain, Finance, Analytics, or a related field required; advanced degree preferred.
5+ years of progressive experience in operations, program management, vendor management, supply chain, healthcare, dental, laboratory, or multi-site service operations.
Demonstrated experience leading complex cross-functional initiatives from design through rollout, stabilization, and ongoing performance management.
Experience managing external vendors through scorecards, service levels, operating reviews, escalation, and corrective action.
Strong analytical and financial acumen, including KPI management, spend analysis, savings validation, forecasting, and business cases.
Experience driving adoption and change across distributed field locations without relying solely on formal authority.
Dental laboratory, dental practice, healthcare, procurement, or digital workflow experience preferred.
Familiarity with Dentira, dental scanners and digital case workflows, Salesforce, Dentrix, Power BI, Excel, and PowerPoint preferred.
Willingness and ability to travel to practices, labs, vendor sites, and company meetings as required.
Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. The company is unable to support or sponsor employment visa status for this role.
Job Details
Pay Type Salary
Job Category Corporate
Bachelor's degree in business, operations, healthcare, supply chain, finance, or analytics; 5+ years progressive experience in operations or program management; vendor management and cross-functional leadership; travel required; U.S. work authorization without sponsorship.
Key Responsibilities
- managing vendor performance
- driving practice adoption
- overseeing program execution
Skills & Tools
Dentira, Salesforce, Dentrix, Power BI, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint
Job Details
- Category: Business Operations
- Seniority: Senior Level
- Commitment: Full Time
- Workplace: Remote — United States
- Languages: English
About Affordable Care
A dental care company managing outside lab operations and vendor performance. — Industry: Healthcare