Physician Provider Relations and Outreach (PPRO) Growth Strategist

About the role

Ardent Health is a leading provider of healthcare in communities across the country, focusing on consumer‑friendly processes and investments in innovative services and technologies to make healthcare better and easier to access. Headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee, Ardent operates 30 hospitals, 280 sites of care, 4,281 beds, employs 24,000+ team members including 8,200+ nurses and 1,800+ aligned providers, handles 5.8M annual provider encounters and trains 421 medical residents. The role leads physician and provider outreach efforts for UT Health Tyler, supporting growth across surgical service lines including General Surgery, Head & Neck, Cardiothoracic, Cardiovascular, Orthopedics, Gynecology, and Neurosciences while expanding referrals, admissions, and network integrity throughout the UT Health East Texas system. The Physician Provider Relations and Outreach (PPRO) Growth Strategist researches and understands service line volumes, utilization, market share, competitor data, and physician referral patterns for assigned lines of business; leverages internal and external data to create strategic business development plans; travels regularly to hospital facilities to provide education and build relationships with community hospitals, clinics, and referring providers; ensures providers are informed of Ardent hospital and medical group services; communicates with hospital market, facility, medical group, and service line leadership to review market knowledge and implement PPRO goals; tracks KPIs such as outreach activities and hospital financial goals; works with internal and external providers, medical group and hospital leadership, and community leaders; identifies growth opportunities and links activity to results while communicating and partnering effectively with market, hospital, and service line leadership.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a market-facing extension of hospital and medical group leadership, focused on driving market share growth, and service line performance.
• Build and advance strategic relationships with physicians, advanced practice providers, practice leaders, and other key referral sources to generate new business and strengthen existing accounts.
• Prospect for new development opportunities, identify competitive opportunities and vulnerabilities, and develop targeted strategies to convert business from competitors.
• Develop and execute data-driven territory, account, and service line growth plans aligned with hospital and medical group strategic priorities.
• Maintain a strong command of the market, including referral patterns, splitter physician alignment, competitor activity, access barriers, service line trends, and emerging growth opportunities.
• Translate market intelligence and field activity into actionable recommendations for hospital executives, medical group leadership, and service line leaders.
• Establish clear account priorities, call strategies, and next steps designed to move opportunities through the business development process.
• Meet defined growth targets for assigned service lines and territories while actively measuring activity, referral trends, account penetration, and business results.
• Use CRM tools to actively manage target accounts, opportunity pipelines, reach and frequency, competitive intelligence, and follow-up activity.
• Deliver compelling, differentiated service line messaging that connects physician and provider needs with Lovelace surgical and procedural specialists, capabilities, access, and services.
• Partner with clinical operations and hospital leadership to identify and quickly resolve operational barriers that impact growth and patient experience.
• Demonstrate strong business acumen, executive presence, persistence, and consultative selling skills when engaging physicians, practice leaders, and healthcare executives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree
• Additional years of experience may substitute for the required education on a year-for-year basis.
• 5+ years of demonstrated sales experience or relevant work experience.
• 2+