Dietitian

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Full Time Marietta, GA, US

The Dietitian is responsible for the comprehensive nutritional assessment, care planning, and ongoing monitoring of residents within the skilled nursing facility. This role ensures the delivery of individualized, evidence-based nutrition services that promote optimal health outcomes, support healing, and enhance residents' quality of life. The Dietitian collaborates closely with nursing, physicians, speech-language pathology, and the broader interdisciplinary team to develop and implement medical nutrition therapy for residents with complex clinical conditions.

This position maintains full compliance with CMS Conditions of Participation, state dietetic practice standards, and facility policies while driving continuous improvement in nutritional care quality across the organization.

Nutritional Assessment & Care Planning

• Conduct comprehensive nutritional assessments for all newly admitted residents within required regulatory time frames, including evaluation of dietary history, anthropometric data, laboratory values, clinical condition, and functional status.
• Develop individualized Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) plans and dietary prescriptions based on residents' clinical diagnoses, nutritional status, cultural preferences, and personal goals.
• Perform ongoing nutritional monitoring and reassessments at required intervals and in response to significant changes in condition, updating care plans to reflect current clinical needs.
• Identify residents at nutritional risk and implement timely, targeted interventions to prevent or address malnutrition, unplanned weight loss, pressure injuries, and other nutrition-related complications.
• Collaborate with the interdisciplinary care team to integrate nutritional care plans with the overall resident plan of care, ensuring coordinated and holistic clinical management.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration & Communication

• Serve as the primary clinical nutrition expert within the interdisciplinary team, participating in care conferences, QAPI meetings, and clinical rounds to represent the nutritional perspective in resident care decisions.
• Collaborate with physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to communicate nutritional findings, obtain appropriate diet and supplement orders, and ensure alignment between medical management and nutrition therapy.
• Partner with speech-language pathology to address dysphagia management, texture-modified diet prescriptions, and safe swallowing strategies for residents with oral motor or swallowing impairments.
• Provide ongoing nutrition-related consultation and education to nursing staff, certified nursing assistants, and dietary aides to promote consistent implementation of nutritional care plans at the bedside.
• Communicate proactively with residents and families regarding nutritional goals, dietary modifications, and appetite concerns, supporting informed decision-making and resident-centered care.

Clinical Quality & Outcomes

• Develop, implement, and monitor a comprehensive nutrition quality management program, including clinical audits, weight trend tracking, pressure injury nutritional protocols, and malnutrition identification processes.
• Analyze nutritional quality indicators, unplanned weight loss rates, laboratory trends, and enteral nutrition outcomes to identify patterns and drive measurable improvement in resident nutritional health.
• Lead nutrition-related QAPI initiatives, presenting clinical findings, data analysis, and evidence-based recommendations to leadership and quality committees on a regular basis.
• Collaborate with MDS coordinators and clinical documentation teams to ensure accurate and complete capture of nutritional diagnoses, weight status, and nutrition support interventions to support appropriate PDPM reimbursement classification.
• Review and investigate nutrition-related incident reports, adverse events, and near misses, implementing corrective actions and process improvements to prevent recurrence.

Regulatory Compliance & Survey Readiness

• Ensure all nutritional care services, documentation, and clinical practices comply with CMS Conditions of Participation, state dietetic licensing requirements, OBRA regulations, and facility policies.
• Maintain comprehensive, audit-ready nutritional assessment records, care plans, physician…