Description

The Palliative Social Work Supervisor provides clinical and administrative leadership for the team of Palliative Care Social Workers, ensuring the consistent delivery of high-quality psychosocial support to patients and families across inpatient and outpatient Palliative and Supportive Care settings. The Supervisor is accountable for staff supervision, performance management, scheduling, training, and quality oversight of the social work team, and maintains a direct clinical role as part of the interdisciplinary Palliative Care team. The Supervisor owns the social work team's contribution to departmental and organizational outcomes — psychosocial and discharge-related metrics, regulatory and documentation compliance, staff productivity, and patient/family experience — and reports on this performance to Palliative and Supportive Care leadership.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

Supervisory – 20% Effort

• Supervises, coaches, and evaluates the performance of Palliative Care Social Workers, including regular one-on-one supervision, annual performance reviews, and performance improvement plans when needed.
• Leads the hiring process for social work staff, including recruitment, interviewing, and selection, and manages the onboarding, orientation, and mentorship of new social work staff members.
• Develops and manages staff shift assignments and timekeeping, including reviewing and approving staff time records, to ensure adequate psychosocial coverage across all shifts.
• Serves as the escalation point for complex case issues, providing clinical guidance and crisis consultation to staff as needed.
• Develops and implements standard work procedures and workflows for the social work team, including completing chart audits and quality reviews to ensure documentation meets clinical and regulatory standards.
• Develops and delivers educational training programs, in-services, and workshops for social work staff, students, and other clinical and allied health professionals.
• Assumes a lead role in supporting team members managing high-acuity or clinically complex patient care needs, including direct consultation and hands-on support when necessary.
• Represents the social work team on system level committees and serves as a subject-matter resource on palliative psychosocial care.
• Maintains working relationships with community agency representatives to ensure patient access to post-discharge services and provides community education as needed.
• Owns the social work team's key performance metrics — caseload distribution, productivity, documentation/chart-audit compliance, and psychosocial and discharge-related outcomes — and reports program performance and outcome trends to Palliative and Supportive Care leadership, recommending process changes to close performance gaps.
• Ensures team practices comply with departmental policy, hospital standards, and applicable regulatory requirements (e.g., Joint Commission, CMS).
• Ensures the position supports the overall Palliative Care interdisciplinary team (IDT) for optimal efficiency and effectiveness.
• Works with the quality lead to ensure quality outcomes across the social work team's practice.
• Ensures the organization's core values are maintained and modeled across the social work team.

Palliative Social Work Team Oversight

The Supervisor is accountable for ensuring the social work team, as a whole, achieves the following:

• Reduces and mitigates psychosocial distress in patients and families.
• Improves continuity of psychosocial care across hospital settings.
• Links patients and families supported by the palliative care consultation service to outpatient clinics and resources.
• Provides post-discharge contact to confirm the discharge plan is secure, and palliative care support continues as needed.
• Optimizes the efficiency and effectiveness of social work services and the palliative care consultation team through appropriate allocation of psychosocial support to patients with high palliative care needs.
• Ensures adequate documentation standards are maintained across the team; develops, tracks, and monitors documentation standards and compliance on an ongoing basis as the role and department evolve.

Direct Clinical Practice – 80% Effort

• Provides direct psychosocial support to patients and families as part of the inpatient Palliative and Supportive Care team, working to reduce and mitigate psychosocial distress and improve continuity of psychosocial care across hospital settings.
• Works in conjunction with both the inpatient and outpatient Palliative and Supportive Care teams and hospital social workers to provide seamless, longitudinal care for patients and families under the palliative care service.

Key Performance Metrics and Outcomes

The Supervisor is accountable for the social work team's performance against the following organizational metrics:

• Documentation standards: chart audit pass rate; documentation timeliness, completeness, and accuracy; adherence to regulatory and accreditation standards (e.g., Joint Commission, CMS).
• Efficient caseloads: caseload distribution and utilization relative to staffing; average caseload per social worker within target range; timely case assignment and closure.
• Access and timeliness: time to initial psychosocial assessment/consult; referral turnaround time to outpatient clinics and community resources.
• Continuity of care: rate of completed post-discharge follow-up contacts; rate of secured discharge plans confirmed at follow-up.
• Patient and family experience: patient/family satisfaction scores related to psychosocial support and care coordination.
• Coverage and responsiveness: escalation response times during business hours; shift/coverage gap rate.
• Timekeeping and staffing accuracy: timeliness and accuracy of staff time record approval; payroll exception/correction rate; adherence to scheduled shift coverage.
• Workforce development: new staff onboarding completion and time-to-competency; training and in-service completion rates; staff retention and engagement.
• Program growth and efficiency: community agency partnerships maintained or established; contribution to the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the palliative care consultation service.
• The Supervisor tracks these metrics on an ongoing basis, reports trends and variances to Palliative and Supportive Care leadership and leads corrective action or process-improvement initiatives when performance falls short of organizational targets.

Other Duties:

Perform additional work-related duties and responsibilities as assigned by supervisor.

Qualifications:

Minimum Required

Education: Master of Social Work (MSW) required; LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) required.

Experience: Minimum 3–5 years of clinical social work experience in palliative care, hospice, or a related healthcare setting.

Licensure: LCSW

Certification: none.

Knowledge, skills, and abilities (required):

• Demonstrated ability to manage staff scheduling, timekeeping, performance evaluations, and training initiatives.
• Strong crisis-management and clinical consultation skills to support staff with complex cases.
• Working knowledge of regulatory and accreditation standards relevant to psychosocial and palliative care services.

Preferred Qualifications

Education: Masters in Social Work.

Experience: Prior supervisory, lead, or charge-level experience strongly preferred.

Licensure: none

Certification: none

Knowledge, skills, and ability requirements (preferred):

• None.

Work Conditions

Travel: None.

Work Type: Onsite 100% of time.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

(Medium Max 25lbs): up to 25 lbs., 0-33% of the workday (occasionally) Lifting 25 lbs. max; Carrying of objects up to 25 lbs.; Occasional to frequent standing & walking, Occasional sitting, Close eye work (computers, typing, reading, writing), Physical demands may vary depending on assigned work area and work tasks.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS:

Factors affecting environmental conditions may vary depending on the assigned work area and tasks. Environmental exposures include but are not limited to: Blood-borne pathogen exposure, Bio-hazardous waste chemicals/gases/fumes/vapors, Communicable diseases, Electrical shock, Floor Surfaces, Hot/Cold Temperatures, Indoor/Outdoor conditions, Latex, Lighting, Patient care/handling injuries, Radiation, Shift work may be required. Use of personal protective equipment, including respirators, and environmental conditions may vary depending on assigned work area and work tasks.