Occupational Therapist Salary in Louisiana 2026,
$98,490 Median | BLS Data by City

Louisiana occupational therapists earn a median $98,490 a year, or $47.35 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $61,070 at the 10th percentile to $126,630 at the 90th. That is only 1.8% below the national median of $100,330 — an unusually small gap, and one of the strongest cost-adjusted positions of any clinical profession in the state. The wide band reflects practice setting rather than seniority.

New Orleans-Metairie, at $102,520, is the only Louisiana metro above the national median. Shreveport-Bossier City follows at $99,250, then Monroe $98,980, Alexandria $98,490 and Baton Rouge $98,030. The notable feature is how little separates them — north Louisiana metros pay within about thirteen hundred dollars of the state median on a substantially lower cost of living than New Orleans.

The Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners. Louisiana does not operate a separate occupational therapy board — the medical board issues both the occupational therapist and the occupational therapy assistant licences. The requirements are graduation from an ACOTE-accredited programme and the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy examination; the state licence is what authorises practice, with NBCOT certification as the examination standard behind it.

Meaningfully, yes. The 2026 flat 3% rate replaced a schedule topping out at 4.25% and came with a larger standard deduction, and at a $98,490 median that is a real annual difference. Louisiana's high combined sales tax offsets part of it, but proportionally less at this income than at lower ones. Combined with housing costs well below the national average and a wage only 1.8% below the national median, the net position is strong.

Because occupational therapy's price is set nationally on both sides. Supply is constrained by ACOTE programme accreditation and the NBCOT examination, which do not expand because a state needs more therapists; demand is paid for largely through Medicare and Medicaid therapy reimbursement, which is set federally. A state with low general wages therefore cannot pay occupational therapists proportionally less without failing to recruit — which is precisely the pattern in the location quotient of 1.02 and the 1.8% gap.

Setting, hours and employment model — not experience. A school-contract therapist working a 180-day academic calendar and a home-health therapist paid per visit are both licensed occupational therapists doing full professional work, but their annual figures land at opposite ends of this band. Louisiana's lower percentiles are populated by school-based, part-time and early-career outpatient roles; the upper ones by home health, skilled nursing, contract and travel assignments. That mobility is the useful part: a Louisiana OT can move between the $72,350 quartile and the $107,880 quartile by changing setting rather than by waiting for seniority.

Productivity models. A significant share of Louisiana occupational therapy work — particularly home health and skilled nursing, which sit in the upper half of this band — is paid per visit or against a productivity target rather than as a flat salary. OEWS annualises these into a single figure, which flatters steady-caseload periods and hides the variance. There is also travel: a home-health therapist covering a rural Louisiana territory absorbs vehicle costs that a hospital-based colleague does not, and that is not deducted from the published wage.

Three. Setting, as above, which is worth more than any other single decision. Specialty certification — hand therapy in particular — which moves the base rate rather than the hours. And contract or travel work, which in Louisiana is used to staff rural facilities that cannot recruit permanently; those assignments carry a premium precisely because the location is hard to fill, and they account for a meaningful part of the population at the $126,630 top of the band.