I help mission-driven organizations serve people well.
I handle the customer support, client communication, and front-line coordination that keep people cared for, and I build the systems and tools that make that work easier behind the scenes. I care as much about how the work feels to receive as I do about how reliably it runs.
I design work around how people actually behave, not how the org chart assumes they do.
ListenMapBuild
Trusted in behavioral healthTaught at General AssemblyBuilds with Claude
You are probably here to size up fit fast. Pick the lane that matches your world. The throughline is the same in all three: I make the work more humane and more reliable at the same time.
THE FULL PICTURE
For therapy practices & solo clinicians
I take the non-clinical work off your plate so you can focus on clients.
I am a freelance Operations Assistant who knows the therapy world from the inside out: intake, scheduling, insurance pre-screening, documentation, payroll support, hiring, content, and the steady admin that pulls clinicians away from sessions. I am happy to take on any non-clinical support project that helps your practice run better.
IF…
Referrals get lost or go cold
Clients wait too long for a callback
You answer every operational question
Clinicians keep asking the same things
Key processes live only in someone’s head
Growth feels chaotic instead of planned
I know the business of a practice, not just the clinical side: intake leakage, supervision load, payer mix, and the admin that quietly burns out good clinicians. My aim is to protect clinician capacity and give hours back per clinician each week. And I fit your existing tools, no rip-and-replace, building inside the systems you already pay for so nothing new has to be bought or learned.
Damien operates as external executive functioning for our team. They bring clarity where there's complexity, structure where there's ambiguity, and momentum where things might otherwise stall.
Systems that scale, and a team that can run them without me.
I build and document the operational backbone a growing practice runs on, then train your team to own it. HIPAA-aware and minimum-necessary access by default, so it holds up as you add clinicians and supervisors.
Intake routing & waitlist management at volume
Per-clinician and per-supervisor dashboards
Referral network and care coordination
Onboarding and SOPs for large teams
Hours back
for supervisors and admin every week
Fewer dropped
referrals and missed follow-ups
Faster access
means more retained clients and billable capacity
What a pilot looks like
Review→Plan→Build→Hand off
A scoped pilot with a clear timeline and a documented handoff, so you see the value before committing, and your team keeps running the system after I step back.
I find cost-effective, efficient solutions that work without breaking the bank.
02
Patient & client-focused
I love helping people, and I take the time to understand what works best for each client.
03
Innovative & unconventional
I explore new ideas, create unique solutions, and thrive in uncharted territory.
How I work
One clear method, every engagement.
01
Understand
Learn the people, the goals, and where it hurts.
02
Map
Trace the real workflow and where it breaks down.
03
Simplify
Cut steps, clarify handoffs, remove friction.
04
Implement
Build the system and document how it runs.
05
Support
Train the team and adjust until it sticks.
What I can take off your plate
Full non-clinical support for your practice
Intake & client communication
Respond to inquiries by phone and email
Insurance pre-screening and verification
Match clients to clinicians per your SOP
Maintain per-clinician waitlists
Monitor inbox and phone lines
Admin & continuity
Meeting notes and decision logs
Response templates for consistency
Backup coverage plans for absences
Payroll support and hours review
Version-controlled document archive
Systems & improvement
Build SOPs, trackers, and checklists
Map workflows and find the gaps
Submit clear improvement proposals
Custom tools where your EHR stops
Resource and referral directories
Documents & writing
Memos, reports, invoices, presentations
Plain-language software how-to guides
Operations manuals for daily work
Accessibility and clarity review
Hiring & onboarding
Schedule interviews, track applicants
Custom new-hire onboarding instructions
Standardized onboarding checklists
Non-clinical support for interns
Marketing & content
Content calendar and creative assets
Brand-consistent client content
Resource page upkeep
Engagement tracking and ideas
Brand & client content
Content that makes a small practice look established
Affirming, on-brand social content that helps a practice show up consistently. Tap the arrows or a dot to move through each carousel.
Affirming therapy in Washington
Femme & Them · Instagram carousel
Brainspotting awareness series
Femme & Them · Educational carousel
Practice marketing I designed
Client-facing ads that bring the right people in
A booking ad I designed for Femme & Them.
For healthcare administration
Healthcare operations that make care safer and easier to access.
I am a healthcare operations professional who has owned end-to-end operations for a 10-plus clinician behavioral health practice and analyzed clinical workflows inside an acute psychiatric hospital.
Open to: Patient Access Coordinator · Care Coordinator · Program Coordinator · Clinic Operations Coordinator · Healthcare Administration
I speak the language access work runs on: time-to-third-appointment, referral leakage, no-show drivers, and the access and quality measures (HEDIS-style access metrics and value-based care) that decide whether patients actually get seen. I also treat equity of access as an operations problem, since affirming, in-network matches are not only the right thing, they shorten time-to-care and reduce drop-off.
Patient accessCare coordinationCare transitionsInsurance verificationHIPAA complianceLean Six SigmaRoot cause analysisRevenue cycle basicsPayroll supportSOPs & documentation
160+ providers in a referral network I built · 3 intake channels unified into one · 10+ clinician practice · $0 new software
"Damien has that rare combination of being both genuinely warm and competent. If you need someone who can organize complexity, strengthen systems, collaborate thoughtfully, and reliably move projects across the finish line, Damien is the person you want in your corner."
The practice's system handled notes, scheduling, and billing, but it had no way to match a client to an in-network outside provider. That work happened from memory and scattered notes. For a mostly Medicaid population seeking affirming, specialized care, a wrong match meant weeks of delay or no care at all. I built the missing piece: one tool that filters 160+ providers by specialty and accepted insurance, and confirms every match before it reaches a clinician.
Affirming Washington providers, filterable by specialty and accepted plan
~15
Insurance plans standardized so filtering is reliable
$0
New software cost, all inside the existing HIPAA agreement
The problem
Referral matching lived outside the EHR, so it lived in someone's head
Finding a provider who matched both the clinical need and the client's insurance came down to recall and unstructured notes. There was no reliable way to ask who accepts Washington Medicaid, or who works with trans clients, and no record of whether a listing was still current. I mapped the referral process end to end first. The two weak points were matching and verification.
Root causes
Three things were quietly breaking every referral
Unstructured dataProvider info lived as free text, so it could not be filtered or sorted.
Inconsistent plan namesOne insurance appeared under several names, so "who takes this plan" had no clear answer.
No verification stepNothing separated confirmed from unconfirmed, so stale info looked identical to good info.
The build
One tool that filters first and confirms before anyone refers
Filter by need and plan
Toggle chips for trans affirming, LGBTQ+, perinatal, autism, ADHD, PTSD, and BIPOC care, plus the exact plans the practice accepts.
Standardized insurance names
Folded inconsistent plan names down to the roughly 15 the practice actually takes, turning a guess into a reliable filter.
Verified at a glance
Color coded cards show verified or not verified, so a reviewer reads the state of a record without opening it.
The judgment call
I looked at a shortcut that would have auto-filled provider details from an outside service, then turned it down: unreliable, against that service's terms, and it would have sent client-adjacent data to a third party with no agreement in place. I used Medicaid's provider registry and each provider's own public page instead, with a human verification step. New providers enter unverified by default, so no client is referred on insurance a person has not confirmed.
Staying accurate
Built to stay reliable over time
Three controls hold the quality: the human verification step, an annual January reset that expires the prior year's checks and prompts a fresh review, and a plain-language runbook with clean ownership, so the directory stays accurate as providers and plans change.
Outcome · Staff find an in-network, affirming match in seconds instead of digging through scattered notes, and a human verification step plus an annual reset keep the directory accurate year over year.
Lean Six Sigma (DMAIC)Process mappingRoot cause analysisData standardizationCare coordinationInsurance & network matchingHIPAA aware design
Case study · Patient access & intake
One intake pipeline, and a private dashboard for every clinician
New clients arrived through three channels the practice's system never connected: a website form, a phone line, and a third party directory. Matching each client to the right clinician depended on someone checking all three by hand, which delayed access and risked clients slipping through. I built the routing layer the EHR was missing, so every inquiry lands in one place, gets assigned, and each clinician sees only their own caseload.
3 in 1
Three intake channels merged into one routing pipeline
Scoped
Minimum necessary access, each clinician sees only their own caseload
Documented
Runbook and clean ownership so it runs on its own
The bottleneck
Patient access was the real problem, not the spreadsheet
A client who is not matched quickly, or is routed to a clinician who is full, often does not get care at all. With three disconnected intake sources, every inquiry depended on a person remembering to check all of them. Mapping the workflow showed it was a routing problem, not a staffing one.
What I built
Connected views that each do one job
Per clinician dashboards
Each clinician sees only their own inquiries, waitlist, consults, and referrals, keeping access minimum necessary by design.
Supervisor routing view
One screen reads all three intake sources and assigns each inquiry, so a client moves from inquiry to clinician in minutes.
The judgment call
A faster path existed: wire it together with a no-code automation service. I recommended against it, because none of those vendors would sign a Business Associate Agreement, and routing client data through them would have broken HIPAA. We kept everything inside the practice's existing agreement. Slower to build, but no new place for protected health information to live.
Built to last
Infrastructure that runs without ongoing upkeep
The system is documented with a plain-language runbook, and every scheduled task lives on an account that stays.
Outcome · Three intake channels now feed one routing pipeline, so requests stop slipping through the cracks and each clinician sees only what is theirs, inside tools the practice already trusts.
Using the Incorruptible framework, I found Molina paired a real mission with weak governance connectivity, and proposed a Member and Frontline Advisory Council to surface risk earlier. Presented to author Eric Ries.
Operations · Institute of Mental Health, Singapore
Closing a post-discharge care transition gap
This is the kind of operational consulting I do for inpatient and outpatient mental health organizations. At the Institute of Mental Health, Singapore, an acute psychiatric hospital, follow-up calls in the first 24 to 72 hours after discharge, the highest-risk window for readmission and self harm, were getting missed. The transition depended entirely on a case manager remembering. I used root cause analysis to map why, then designed a closed-loop follow-up system that does not rely on memory.
300×
Higher suicide risk in the week after psychiatric discharge vs the general population. Source: Action Alliance / SAMHSA
6
Contributing categories mapped in the fishbone diagram
3
Fixes designed, from owner assignment to a role-based dashboard
The problem
A critical safety step ran entirely on one person remembering
A case manager is supposed to call. Too often the call happened late, was incomplete, or did not happen. No single role owned the task, nothing tracked it, and nothing prompted it. That made it a workflow design problem, not a clinician performance problem.
Root cause analysis
A fishbone diagram across six categories of cause
I mapped contributing factors and benchmarked the design against care-transition standards from NICE, Singapore's Ministry of Health, and the US Action Alliance.
The fix
A closed-loop system that makes forgetting structurally hard
Owner assigned at discharge
Discharge automatically creates a follow-up task with a named owner and deadline, so no step relies on memory.
Risk-based timing
High-risk patients trigger a contact requirement inside 24 hours. Exemptions require clinical justification, not visit type.
Role-based dashboard
Case manager sees their tasks, consultant sees escalations, admin sees capacity. Logging an action closes the loop.
Outcome · A prioritized set of evidence-based recommendations and an early decision-support prototype, benchmarked against international care-transition standards, handed to the hospital team.
Operational consultingCare transitionsRoot cause analysisFishbone (Ishikawa)5 WhysBenchmarking to clinical standardsDashboard design
AI reskilling for nonprofits
AI works when people feel capable, not replaced.
Most teams are more capable than they are told. Given clear explanations, honest conversations about ethics, and enough psychological safety to learn, people pick up hard skills and make AI genuinely useful on their own terms. My job is to help them get there, and to build the tools that prove it works.
An early-career builder, doing community-centered work.
I build useful things with people, not just for them: tools, trainings, and systems teams adopt and then maintain on their own.
Early-career builder
I make practical tools, get teams using them, then leave the solution behind to maintain.
Servant leader
I do the unglamorous work first and keep the community at the center.
AmeriCorps, two terms
National service taught me to show up and put the mission first.
Free AI for early-career people
I taught a free economic-mobility program at General Assembly, opening real workplace AI skills.
Responsible by default
Built under HIPAA, client-adjacent data, and a $0 budget. Safety is part of the build.
I lift the people I train
When someone goes from anxious to capable, I make that win visible.
Built for the people tech usually leaves behind.
I am transgender and neurodivergent, and I build for the people technology too often overlooks, especially late adopters on thin budgets in mission-first teams.
If you are putting people into the organizations that serve the communities most software ignores, I am an early-career builder who already does this work, usefully and with the community at the center.
My path here
Experience timeline
Designed by Claude
An early-career path with under two years of full-time professional experience: most of this was part-time, externships, and national service held while studying. Tap any role to expand it.
Teaching · AI educator
Teaching AI and creative tools to working adults
Instructional Associate · Adobe Creative Skills Academy for Marketers · General Assembly
A free economic-mobility program teaching workplace-ready AI skills to people early in their careers, built to open up economic opportunity.
Adobe Creative Educator
30+
learners per cohort
100%
remote: Zoom, Slack, Discord, Canvas
Student→Instructor
took the program, then taught it
I translate complex AI tools into accessible, applied workflows, run live demonstrations, and read whether a technical idea is landing in a non-technical room. I rebuilt incomplete curriculum into clear lessons, and fed real learner experience back into the program's design. It is the clearest proof of what I believe: with the right support, people who are sure they are not tech people surprise themselves.
Learn more about my community work
Mission & community work · Office Assistant & Peer Mentor, South Puget Sound Community College.
Ran scheduling, data, and student-facing communication for a student services program.
Supported the IGNITE retention initiative for 150+ students navigating systemic barriers across race, 2SLGBTQIA+ identity, disability, age, and income.
Helped train other mentors and connected students to academic and personal support.
Models I teach with and build on
ClaudeGeminiChatGPT
"The most engaging Zoom classes I've ever had, considering the packed subject. A huge thanks for all the brilliant insights and support throughout the course."
Course participant · General Assembly
"Your expertise and encouragement made all the difference. Thank you for the guidance, support, and dedication throughout the programme."
Course participant · General Assembly
What I have learned
People don’t resist technology because they are incapable. They resist because they are uncertain, overwhelmed, left out of the conversation, or worried about the consequences.
So I treat adoption as a human process. I listen first, talk about ethics openly, start from real problems, show practical value, and respect people’s autonomy. Most of the work is helping people move from uncertainty to confidence.
What that tech hesitation usually sounds like
Tap any one to see what is usually going on underneath.
Trauma-informed change management
New tools land on real people, often people who are stretched thin, skeptical, or anxious that technology has moved on without them. Technical explanations alone rarely change minds; what works is slower and more human. I bring AI and systems change in a way that protects trust. In practice that means:
Start where the worry is. I listen to the real concern, talk about ethics openly rather than defensively, and begin from a problem people already care about, not from the tool.
Explain the why before the how. People adopt change they understand and resist change that feels done to them.
Build for neurodiversity. I design communication and systems that give the context and the reasoning behind every change, not just the steps. Autistic and ADHD teammates (and honestly most people) do far better with a clear why, predictable steps, and reasons they can trust.
Design around the fear, not against it. Some people panic at new tools the way others freeze at math, and you cannot argue someone out of that. So I build interfaces that feel familiar and human, that look like things people already use, so the fear never gets triggered in the first place.
Give choice and control over pace. Opt-in steps and a say in the rollout, never a forced switch overnight.
Make "I don't get this yet" safe to say. No shame, no public quizzing. Questions are welcome and expected.
Pair every new tool with a person to ask. Hands-on support and a clear runbook, not a link and good luck.
Build feedback loops. The people using the tool shape it, so it gets better and stays trusted.
How I handle learners who feel left behind
In my Adobe academy cohorts, some of the most anxious learners were older professionals who felt technology had moved on without them.
I slowed down and connected each new tool to something they already knew.
I celebrated small wins out loud.
I gave them a judgment-free way to ask questions outside the group.
Most went from "I will never get this" to teaching the person next to them. That shift, from left behind to leading, is the whole point.
Teaching practice
Psychological safety and creativity in the room
As an Adobe Creative Educator, I use creativity to build connection and make it safe to learn something new. This short series walks through how.
Built with Claude
Tools I built using Claude
Dashboards & data viewsWeb apps & pagesWorkflows that connect toolsGoogle Apps ScriptDocuments & templates
Live tool
Referral Finder
A searchable directory of 160+ affirming providers, filterable by specialty and insurance, with a verification step built in. Live and in use at a behavioral health practice.
A closed-loop care-transition system for an acute mental health hospital: owner assignment at discharge, risk-based timing, and a role-based dashboard so nothing relies on memory.
Read the case study →
Capstone
HealthSync campaign
A full marketing campaign for a health app concept, built with AI tools from research to finished creative.
Good AI judgment means knowing what not to automate
Tap each task to see where I would put AI to work, and where I would keep a human firmly in the loop. Tap any one to see the rule of thumb behind it. Part of the job is saying when not to build, like keeping crisis response with a person, on purpose.
Drafting a donor newsletter
Tap to reveal
Great for AI
A strong first draft in seconds, then a human edits for voice and accuracy.
Summarizing long meeting notes
Tap to reveal
Great for AI
Fast, consistent summaries free staff to act on decisions instead of transcribing them.
Cleaning a messy spreadsheet
Tap to reveal
Great for AI
Standardizing names and formats is exactly the tedious work AI handles well.
Deciding who gets limited funds
Tap to reveal
Keep a human
High-stakes, values-laden calls belong to accountable people, not a model.
Responding to someone in crisis
Tap to reveal
Keep a human
Care and safety need real human judgment and presence, full stop.
Setting program strategy
Tap to reveal
Keep a human
AI can inform options, but direction comes from the people who own the mission.
That instinct, written down
The same judgment, as a rule of thumb you can hand your team.
Responsible AI, on your terms
Human oversight on every output
Transparency about what AI did
Accessible to non-technical staff
Practical, sustainable implementation
Mission alignment first
Where AI doesn’t belong
Clinical decision-making
Sensitive client decisions
Final human judgment
High-risk compliance decisions
Designed by Claude.
hire-someone-with-real-skills /
Designed by Claude
"Damien has that rare combination of being both genuinely warm and competent. They can organize complexity, strengthen systems, collaborate thoughtfully, and reliably move projects across the finish line."
"Damien has that rare combination of being both genuinely warm and competent. They can organize complexity, strengthen systems, collaborate thoughtfully, and reliably move projects across the finish line."
Built a full operations manual clinicians use day to day
Created custom onboarding and supported new hires
Helped build group trainings for therapists and clients
Built a community resource referral directory
Helped write and develop fair handbook policies
Consultation and implementation, by the same person
How I work
A systems thinker who cares how things feel to use.
I keep practices organized and responsive, and I care as much about how the work feels to receive as whether it actually runs.
01
Listen first
I learn how your practice really works before I change a thing.
02
Communicate clearly
Plain updates, no jargon, no surprises for you or your clinicians.
03
Follow through
I finish what I start and close the loop, every time.
04
Leave it better
Calm, documented systems your team can run without me.
About
Damien Homiak they / them
A systems thinker who cares how things feel to use.
I help organizations and the people in them work better.
I build practical systems and supportive workflows, keep things organized and responsive, and care as much about how the work feels to receive as whether it runs. My experience spans client support, operations, process improvement, teaching, and helping teams adopt AI responsibly: assessing readiness, starting small with safeguards, training people, and measuring what changes.
CoordinationClient & customer supportAdministrationOperationsAI teachingProject-based work
If you need someone who can make sense of complexity, support people well, and build systems that last, I would love to connect.
Education & credentials
Education & credentials
Education
BS Healthcare Administration · Western Governors University · in progress
AAS Accounting · South Puget Sound Community College
Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt · LinkedIn Learning
Healthcare & compliance
HIPAA Security for Group Practice Leaders · Person Centered Tech
HIPAA Zero to Hero · Udemy
Effective Care Coordination & Discharge · LinkedIn Learning
US Healthcare Payors · Udemy
Revenue Cycle & Healthcare Finance · Udemy
Community Health Worker Core Competency · WA State Dept of Health
Mental Health First Aid USA · National Council for Mental Wellbeing
Operations & administration
Change Management Professional · LinkedIn Learning
I am at my best in roles where the work is a little hectic, the problems are a little messy, and there is real value in someone who notices what needs doing and just does it.
In my last role, I ran day-to-day operations for a behavioral health practice: intake, scheduling, insurance verification, referrals, EHR documentation, and the constant coordination it takes to get someone into the right care at the right time. I have also mapped workflows inside an acute psychiatric hospital and built practical tools that made it easier for staff to do their jobs and for patients to get seen without extra friction. I am the person who writes the SOPs people actually follow, helps new team members get up to speed, and quietly untangles the processes that everyone else has learned to work around.
On your team, that could look like patients and families getting clear, timely follow-through; providers spending less of their energy chasing information; and the front line feeling a little less chaotic and a lot more supported. I would not just keep up with the work in front of me; I would pay attention to where people are struggling and look for small, respectful changes that make their day easier.
If you are looking for someone who genuinely cares about patients, can handle the details, and has the judgment to take on more over time, I would welcome the chance to talk. Please feel free to reach out using the form below.
Damien operates as external executive functioning for our team. They bring clarity where there's complexity, structure where there's ambiguity, and momentum where things might otherwise stall. They don't just plan or advise; they make things happen.
