Clinical nutrition is an
asset —
not a line item.
Evidence-based consulting for hospital systems, health networks, and corporate leadership on RDN workforce strategy, clinical ROI modeling, compensation advocacy, and mission-alignment. Most systems underinvest in clinical nutrition — not because leadership doesn't value it, but because no one has made the case compellingly enough.
Now accepting engagement conversations for 2026–2027 · Engagements typically range $50K–$200K+ depending on scope
Licensed clinicians, compensated like support staff.
Registered Dietitian Nutritionists hold a master's-level credential, pass a national board exam, complete a supervised residency, and carry state licensure. In most health systems, they are compensated 20–30% below adjacent allied-health roles with equivalent or lesser training. The downstream effects — attrition, recruitment cost, reduced clinical capacity, unmet patient need — are measurable, but rarely measured.
Anonymized case context
An organization publicly committed to whole-person care was compensating licensed nutrition experts 20–30% below adjacent allied-health roles, with no formal case ever made to leadership. The resulting framework projected $94.1M in clinical value against approximately $750K in annual compensation correction cost.
125× return on investmentAll identifying details anonymized per consulting engagement terms.
Five deliverables. Built for leadership decision-making.
Each engagement is scoped to the organization — but the deliverables are consistent, because the evidence requirements for a Board, a CFO, and a CMO are consistent.
RDN Compensation Analysis
Primary benchmarking against national salary data, adjacent allied-health roles, and regional cost-of-living. Delivered with the rebuttal language for common leadership objections.
Workforce Pipeline Modeling
Attrition risk, recruitment cost, and future-state FTE modeling tied to current clinical volume and service-line growth projections.
Clinical ROI Scenario Modeling
Conservative, base-case, and optimistic scenarios tying nutrition investment to readmission reduction, length-of-stay, malnutrition capture, and value-based-care performance.
Mission & Vision Alignment
Frameworks connecting nutrition investment to whole-person care, population health, community benefit reporting, and mission-forward marketing narratives.
Leadership Presentations & Grand Rounds
Ready-to-deliver board decks, grand-rounds presentations, and one-on-one briefing materials for CFO, CMO, CNO, and VP of Clinical Services.
Program Design
End-to-end design of clinical nutrition programs for oncology service lines, GLP-1 weight-loss programs, and metabolic health initiatives — staffing ratios, care protocols, outcome metrics.
Three scenarios. One evidence base.
The full interactive ROI estimator lives on the home page — it lets your team input your bed count, RDN FTEs, and target ratio, then generates conservative, base-case, and optimistic clinical value scenarios in real time.
Hospital HR & benefits teams: I also run dedicated Corporate Wellness Partnerships for hospital workforces and broader employer populations — including GLP-1 employee programs, executive nutrition retainers, and workshops. See Corporate Partnerships →
Common questions from system leaders
Every engagement begins with an organizational discovery call to understand your specific workforce, reimbursement, and program-design challenges. From there, scope is built around deliverables — compensation benchmarking, ROI modeling, workforce-pipeline assessment, leadership presentations — not hours. Pricing is fixed-fee per deliverable and tied to scope; nothing is billed by the clock.
From single-hospital community systems to multi-state academic and faith-based networks. The framework adapts: smaller systems often need workforce and compensation strategy; larger systems often need ROI modeling and program-design work that survives leadership transitions.
The five most common: (1) compensation benchmarking analysis with peer-system data; (2) clinical-nutrition ROI scenario models tied to readmission, length-of-stay, and oncology outcomes; (3) workforce pipeline assessment and retention strategy; (4) program-design recommendations for inpatient, outpatient, oncology, and Lifestyle Medicine integration; (5) board-ready or executive-leadership presentations of the findings. Most engagements include 3–4 of these.
Most engagements run 8–16 weeks from kick-off to final presentation, depending on scope. A focused single-deliverable project (e.g., compensation benchmarking only) can complete in 4–6 weeks. Multi-phase work that ties workforce strategy into ROI modeling and program design typically runs 12–16 weeks with monthly steering reviews.
Engagements have ranged from chief medical officers and VP-level clinical operations, to nutrition department leadership, HR/compensation strategy, oncology service-line directors, and corporate wellness leads. The right entry point depends on what you're trying to solve — happy to advise during discovery on who else should be in the room.
Yes. Final deliverables are designed to be presented to executive leadership, finance committees, or boards without translation. ROI scenarios are modeled with clear assumption disclosure; benchmarking pulls from peer-system data with attribution; recommendations are sequenced into 30/60/90-day and 12-month action plans.
Yes. Every engagement begins with a mutual NDA. Data shared during the engagement is used only for that engagement and is not referenced in future work without written permission. Prior client work referenced elsewhere reflects employment relationships through AdventHealth's Executive Health Program; system consulting clients of Vitae Arete are not named without explicit consent.
Scope the right engagement for your organization.
Every engagement begins with an organizational discovery call, followed by a tailored proposal. The structured intake below helps me prepare the right conversation before we connect.
Prefer to start with a PDF intake? Download the Engagement Scoping intake and email it to [email protected].