When it comes to recruitment, Ochsner Health faces the same enduring challenges as other health care organizations. There is a limited number of physicians and specialties in the different markets, observed Melissa M. Love, MA, Ochsner’s system vice president of professional staff services and the Office of Professional Well-Being.
Something special about Ochsner Health is its geography. Located on the Gulf Coast, Ochsner facilities are in the path of hurricanes. This reality can give some prospective hires and their families pause. None of these challenges have stopped Ochsner Health from becoming a high performer among health systems. As the demand continually changes for physicians in certain specialties, Ochsner Health has adapted its recruitment strategies to meet those needs.
Ochsner Health is a member of the AMA Health System Program that provides enterprise solutions to equip leadership, physicians and care teams with resources to help drive the future of medicine.
Last year, Ochsner Health made Fortune magazine’s list of the best places to work in health care. It was also recently awarded the 2025 Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award for employee engagement. For five years running, USA Today has also named Ochsner Health as a top place to work in the United States.
Ochsner Health also received gold-level designation from the AMA Joy in Medicine™ Health System Recognition Program, which recognizes organizations from across the country for their dedication to building well-being and reducing physician burnout in their organization.
“When we established the Office of Professional Well-Being several years ago, it was part of a road map created to define the strategic priorities we want to achieve organizationally,” Love said.
Ochsner Health’s physician turnover rate historically sits below the national average, which is 7.6%.
“Right now, we’re around 6%, but it’s actually been as low as 4.5 to 5%. That’s something we're really proud of,” said Love. Ochsner Health has also doubled its number of physicians and nonphysician providers, hiring 175 to 200 physicians each year—a trend that persisted during the COVID-19 public health emergency.
Robert Hart, MD, Ochsner's chief physician executive, weighed in, emphasizing the importance of culture for Ochsner Health's success.
“We’ve prioritized ensuring our physicians have the tools and resources necessary to provide exceptional patient care,” said Dr. Hart. "As an executive leadership team, we’re dedicated to being visible and accessible, fostering collaboration and innovation across our teams. This commitment to engagement and professional growth empowers our team members to excel every day across our system."
Love described the many ways Ochsner Health engages and supports its physicians, and the strategies it has pursued to recruit and keep doctors—despite the risk of natural disaster.
Bring in the physician’s voice
Ochsner Health serves many communities, not only in the New Orleans metropolitan area, but across Louisiana, coastal Mississippi, eastern Mississippi and western Alabama.
One thing that keeps physicians engaged is Ochsner Health’s group practice model, which prioritizes the physician voice.
“Our Professional Affairs Committee includes physicians from every region in our organization, and they are actively involved every month in meeting with our chief physician executive and other physician leaders,” said Love.
Discussions involve topics that directly affect physicians in their practice, such as organizational shifts.
“We want them to be here and take great care of patients, but we also want them to have a great experience, enjoy the work they're doing, and remain a part of the Ochsner Group Practice,” said Love.
The Professional Affairs Committee keeps a finger on the pulse of its physician leader groups and front-line physicians, shaping Ochsner Health’s culture and growth strategies as well as its adoption of augmented intelligence (AI) and other tools that enhance the practice experience.
Ochsner Health also supports academic and research opportunities. While not every practicing physician is interested in such pursuits, for some doctors it’s a real selling point to join the health system and become involved in research that can make a positive impact on patient care.
Support for all leadership levels
Physician development is not just about its leaders, said Love. “It's how we are making sure that we're investing in physicians and developing them and giving them opportunities they are interested in.”
Ochsner Health offers leadership curricula to benefit doctors at varying levels of leadership. For example, for physicians who are new to supervisory roles, Ochsner Health helps them get up to speed on handling human-resources issues or have difficult conversations with employees.
“We have a very specific curriculum around that,” said Love.
More advanced courses cover strategic planning, how to examine the external health care business landscape, and how doctors can grow in their leadership roles at Ochsner Health.
The health system also offers an annual “introduction to physician leadership” program, an application-based program for doctors actively interested in opportunities to focus on their personal and professional well-being and growth. Love explained that many physicians are interested in being more involved in matters that extend beyond day-to-day practice but are unsure where to start. Ochsner Health just launched its fifth cohort of the program, which includes 30 to 45 physicians each year.
This program gives physicians a chance to meet and learn from new colleagues, which boosts retention.
“People are creating social networks outside of their own teams,” Love said. Even when physicians decide that ascending the managerial ladder is not something they want to pursue, many have shared that the experience “opened their mind and expanded their view of the organization.” Ochsner Health has seen some great returns on this investment, she emphasized. The people who participate in this program are the ones who volunteer to serve on a committee or a project or participate in a system or regional objective.
“When people are actively raising their hands, regardless of whether it's formal or informal leadership, when you're giving them opportunities to participate, that creates natural retention and investment in the organization,” said Love.
Benefits meet physician needs
“Organizationally, we have a really active commitment to ensuring that our benefits reflect what our employees and our physicians are looking for,” said Love.
One key benefit is child care. The health system works with an outside firm called Bright Horizons to provide a variety of child care services, including an early learning center on site near their largest campus and other facilities.
“We work with them to offer a variety of resources related to in-home child care, backup child care and in-home assistance for elder care,” Love said.
Ochsner Health also provides financial education services, helping doctors with budgeting as well as medical student-loan forgiveness and repayment. These and other thoughtfully curated benefits have gotten strong positive feedback from physicians, according to Love.
The standard of care in physician well-being recognition
Institutions in this article have been honored by the Joy in Medicine™ Health System Recognition Program.
Well-being programs help retention
At Ochsner Health, well-being and work-life balance go hand in hand.
"We are very proud to be recognized by the AMA for our Joy in Medicine work," said Dr. Hart. "We're committed to the well-being of our team members and are investing in new ways to support ease of practice and relieve administrative burden."
To reduce burnout, Ochsner Health helps physicians coordinate their schedules around vacations. The health system makes available to physicians their entire allotment of paid time off at the beginning of the year, rather than having them accrue the time off as the months roll along.
“We recognize that all of our specialties and practices have a different number of physicians available for our patients,” Love said. “If everyone accrues all at the same rate, then it’s harder to know when to take time off. Allocating vacation time on the front end each year gives everyone an opportunity to be able to take vacation and still serve patients.”
Another priority has been to reduce the physician burden of in-basket messaging. Ochsner Health updated its MyOchsner portal to reroute certain messages from patients to various care-team members for things such as prescription renewals, reducing the load of messages that physicians take on and freeing up time for direct patient care.
“When we discuss practice efficiency, we’re talking about time saved on non-patient facing activities like time in the medical record, and how that equates for time for other things. Physicians often spend time after hours doing notes at the expense of another activity. An hour a day saved in Epic means more time doing other things such as attending a child’s soccer practice,” Love said.
In addition, Ochsner’s employee health program encourages physicians to take advantage of recommended annual screenings, mammograms and other activities that promote physical and mental health.
Recruitment means partnering up
“We use a variety of sourcing platforms so that our outreach is outside of our local geography, making sure we’re active in specialty-specific associations,” said Love. In its outreach to resident and fellowship programs, Ochsner Health shares information related to the practice, but also covers topics that are relevant to next career steps. Several presentations address life after residency, highlighting how to write a CV, what to look for in future employers, and things to consider when making practice decisions.
To further boost recruitment and enhance the academic mission, the UQ-Ochsner Clinical School was established in 2009. The UQ-Ochsner Clinical School Doctor of Medicine is a four-year degree. The first two years are spent at UQ's Queensland campuses in Brisbane, and the final two years are spent at the UQ-Ochsner Clinical School in New Orleans.
Graduates match with residency programs across the U.S. Thirteen medical school classes have graduated, with 14% matching with Ochsner Health residency programs. Meanwhile, Ochsner Health has 28 employed physicians who are Queensland alumni of the program.
Ochsner Health also teamed up with Xavier University of Louisiana to open a new medical school, the Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine, in downtown New Orleans. In the planning stages, the goal is to build a pathway and train future physicians in the Gulf South.
Ochsner Health also has tapped some of its physicians to serve as ambassadors to help in recruiting new doctors to the health system.
“In primary care, we have identified specific physicians who allocate part of their time to resident outreach and education,” said Love.
The ambassadors offer a path to get upstream and build the candidate pool in a different way.
“Successful recruitment requires making the commitment to build relationships with residency and fellowship programs throughout the country,” Love said. That means that physicians take the time to be in front of residents and fellows to share what Ochsner Health has to offer. They hope to serve as a model on how to navigate a career in medicine in a way that is professionally rewarding and personally satisfying.
