About Sound
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Nashville, TN, Sound Physicians is a nationally respected, physician-led medical group practicing in 400+ hospitals across 45 states. Our team of 4,000+ clinicians and 1,000+ business professionals across the country is united by one mission: to build exceptional clinical partnerships that unlock quality, affordable, dignified care for everyone – no matter who they are or where they live. With physician-led clinical teams and more than two decades of operational expertise, we’ve refined what it takes to consistently deliver exceptional care in hospital medicine, emergency medicine, critical care, anesthesia, and telemedicine.
Why join us?
- A remote-first culture that values flexibility and collaboration
- Opportunities to grow your career while making a real impact
- A team that champions inclusivity, innovation, and excellence
Whether working virtually or onsite at one of our practices, you’ll be part of a purpose-driven organization shaping the future of healthcare.
Sound Physicians offers a competitive benefits package inclusive of the items below, and more:
- Medical insurance, Dental insurance, and Vision insurance
- Health care and dependent care flexible spending account
- 401(k) retirement savings plan with a company match
- Self-managed PTO Plan
- Ten company-paid holidays per year
About the Role
Benefits and wellbeing, done well, are one of the most personal things an employer offers — they show up the day someone has a baby, the week a parent goes into hospice, the moment a clinician is deciding whether to stay in medicine. This Director leads that work for the 6,000+ clinicians and colleagues who keep Sound Physicians running across all 50 states. That work includes health and welfare plans, retirement, voluntary benefits, compliance, and the wellbeing programming that backs Sound's practice-of-choice promise.
Reporting to the VP of People Operations, the Director builds and develops the benefits team and partners closely with executive leadership, Finance, Payroll, Legal, and our broker. They are the trusted contact for hospital partners and site leaders, and they move comfortably between a multi-year strategy conversation with the executive team and a Tuesday-morning benefits Q&A in a hospital break room on go-live day.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
- Lead the Colleague Benefits & Wellbeing function for Sound Physicians, including health and welfare plans, retirement, voluntary benefits, and wellbeing programming.
- Partner with VP to develop, articulate, and execute a multi-year Benefits strategy aligned to Sound’s practice-of-choice positioning and clinician attraction and retention priorities.
- Own all vendor and broker relationships, including renewal strategy, RFPs, performance management, contract negotiation, and escalation. Partner closely with Marsh and other named partners.
- Lead annual benefits planning, plan design recommendations, and the end-to-end Open Enrollment process, including the educational and communications strategy that supports it.
- Own the compliance and audit cadence across ERISA, ACA, COBRA, HIPAA, Section 125, DC nondiscrimination testing, 5500 filings, and state-specific requirements.
- Design, launch, and continuously improve wellbeing programs that are woven into day-to-day operations — not bolt-on wellness challenges — so clinicians and colleagues can come to work and end the day as their best selves.
- Travel to new hospital implementations and key sites to ensure benefits are clearly communicated to incoming clinicians and to build direct relationships with hospital partners and site leaders.
- Organize and host an annual benefits fair at Sound's Medical Director Summit (planned for September this year), creating a hands-on touchpoint for medical directors to engage directly with the benefits team and vendor partners.
- Lead the year-round colleague benefits education and communications strategy, including the Benefits Hub, OE presentations and education, and ongoing engagement campaigns.
- Analyze plan utilization, cost trends, and population health data to inform plan design, vendor decisions, and medical trend mitigation strategy. Leverage AI, scenario modeling, and predictive analytics to support forecasting, budget planning, and renewal decisions.
- Modernize how benefits are delivered and experienced. Adopt AI-enabled tools, automation, and self-service capabilities that improve accuracy, accessibility, and the colleague experience while reducing manual lift on the team.
- Push vendors and broker partners on innovation. Evaluate new solutions, pilot tech-forward offerings where they meaningfully improve value or experience, and hold partners accountable to current capability, not legacy delivery.
- Manage, coach, and actively teach the benefits team — on benefits best practices, streamlining and modernizing outdated processes, technical fluency, and analytical capability, including practical use of HRIS and AI-enabled ways of working. Build and execute the talent strategy and structure required to scale the function as Sound grows.
- Partner with the VP People Operations on benefits budget and trend management
- Stay ahead of regulatory developments and market innovations; bring forward recommendations that keep Sound competitive in clinical talent markets.
Values
- Strategic: Operates with a multi-year, practice of choice lens. Aligns benefits and wellbeing investments to Sound's broader workforce and growth strategy.
- Trusted by providers: Builds credibility with physicians, APPs, and other clinicians, and represents the function with senior leadership and external partners. Communicates with clarity and confidence in clinical and executive settings alike.
- Relationship-driven: Builds durable trust with hospital partners, vendors, broker teams, and internal stakeholders. Sees relationship-building as a core operating discipline, not a soft skill.
- Operationally rigorous: Balances strategy with sound day-to-day execution, audit discipline, and compliance ownership.
- People-developer: Builds team capability deliberately. Teaches, coaches, and mentors. Invests in upskilling the team in modern tools and ways of working, and creates space for the team to grow into bigger scope.
- Innovation-oriented: Brings market insights, modern thinking, and a continuous-improvement orientation to plan design, vendor stewardship, and wellbeing.
- Mission-aligned: Connects benefits work to the everyday experience of clinicians and to Sound's practice-of-choice strategy.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- Deep expertise across health and welfare benefits, retirement, leave, voluntary benefits, and employee and clinician wellbeing.
- Strong working knowledge of ERISA, COBRA, ACA, HIPAA, Section 125, nondiscrimination testing, 5500 filings, and multi-state benefits compliance.
- Demonstrated track record managing benefits brokers, carriers, and admin platforms.
- Experience leading enterprise-wide benefits initiatives including renewals, plan transitions, vendor changes, and major communications efforts.
- Strong commercial and contract negotiation skills; comfortable challenging vendors on performance and value.
- Able to translate complex benefits topics into clear executive-level narrative.
- Experience designing and executing clinician wellbeing programs that tie back to retention and engagement outcomes.
- Strong data and analytics skills; able to translate plan utilization, claims, and cost data into actionable plan design and budget decisions, and to use scenario modeling and predictive analytics for forecasting and renewal strategy.
- Digital fluency. Comfortable using HRIS, analytics platforms, automation, and AI-enabled tools as part of day-to-day work, and curious about what comes next.
- Genuine desire to teach and develop the team. Track record of coaching, training, and upskilling direct and indirect reports, not just delegating to them.
- Experience with UKG (or similar HRIS), benefits administration platforms, and ticketing/case management systems such as FreshService.
- Experience in multi-state, multi-jurisdictional benefits environments, ideally within healthcare, physician services, or multi-site organizations.
- People leadership experience: has managed teams of 3+ direct reports across analyst and manager tiers; has hired, developed, and retained benefits talent.
- Strong written and verbal communications skills; experience designing communications strategy for non-HR audiences.
- Actively connected to a peer network of benefits leaders and organizations — uses external relationships to benchmark, pressure-test ideas, and bring outside thinking back into Sound's plan design, vendor strategy, and wellbeing work.
- Willingness and ability to travel approximately 2x a quarter for site implementations, OE roadshows, and onsite benefits engagement.
Education and Experience
- 10+ years of progressive experience in benefits and total rewards, with at least 3-5 years in a director or senior leadership role.
- Experience in healthcare, physician services, hospital system, or multi-site organization strongly preferred.
- CEBS, CBP or similar professional certification strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated track record of building, scaling, or maturing a benefits function within a similarly complex, distributed workforce.
Salary Range
- This position offers an annual salary range of $135,000 to $160,000, as well as a bonus opportunity outside of base pay. Exact salary will depend on the candidate’s experience, education and geographic location.
Sound Physicians is an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer and is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion at the bedside and in our workforce. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.
This job description reflects the present requirements of the position. As duties and responsibilities change and develop, the job description will be reviewed and subject to amendment. #SoundBC
Equal Opportunity Employer
This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights (https://www.eeoc.gov/poster) notice from the Department of Labor.
