Healthcare industry plays a vital role in the betterment of society. In this context, the hospitals are paying more attention for providing more pay and rewards to their employees to improve the motivation level and patient‐oriented behavior. The current study investigates the effect of the rewards and core self‐evaluation (CSE) on employee motivation and their patient‐oriented behavior (POB) in the healthcare sector A cross‐sectional survey was conducted and data was collected from 226 nurses of public sector hospitals of Pakistan through questionnaires. SPSS 23, used for descriptive statistics and PLS‐SEM 3 was used for analysis purpose. The results reveal that the reward system, CSE, and employee motivation had an impact on POB. However, the reward system non‐significantly negatively affects POB and positively affects employee motivation. Employee motivation positively mediates the relationship between the reward system and POB. The CSE as moderate the relationship between the reward system (RS) and employee motivation (EM) as well as moderate the intervening effect of EM between the RS and POB.