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The Best Ways Nurses Can Work from Home

Written by: Dr. Nisha Cooch
Published on: Mar 12, 2020
Category:

Home Office

It’s no secret that nurses are in high demand. More than many other professionals, nurses can enjoy mobility, moving to new places and finding jobs without a significant struggle. Nonetheless, some nurses get burned out of clinical practice or want more flexibility than clinical nursing affords. Nurses who become parents, for instance, often find shift work difficult and become interested in other ways that they can apply their nursing education and experience.

If you are a nurse and want to use your nursing skills to do something other than provide in-person clinical care, here are some options for you to consider.

  1. Case Management.

Case management can be a satisfying way for nurses to apply their skills, continue to collaborate with healthcare professionals, and enjoy the flexibility of remote work. If you are to work in case management, you will aim to help improve patient outcomes by coordinating aspects of patients’ clinical care, healthcare coverage, and employment. Much of the work involves being on the phone or on the computer so can largely be done from anywhere and on a flexible schedule.

  1. Writing.

There is no shortage of need for medical writers to help develop nursing curricula, tests, patient-focused content, and other written collateral. Nursing experience can help position people to succeed in these roles, which tend to be highly flexible. As a writer, you can also work as a freelancer, with no specific overall salary cap, enabling you to work as much or as little as you want and to earn more or less based on your professional goals and preferences.

Nurse working from home

  1. Telephone Jobs.

Nurses are needed for different types of telephone roles. Call center nurses and telephone triage nurses, for instance, are in high demand. The former role is more administrative in nature, which may appeal to certain nurses, though it is also associated with less pay than triage. Unlike call center nurses, triage nurses provide medical advice. Triage nurses arguably put their healthcare experience to work more directly, evaluating information they receive from patients and making decisions about the best course of action for those patients. In triage roles, nurses also help to ease the burden on physicians and often continue to collaborate with healthcare providers.

  1. Insurance.

Insurance companies value nurses’ ability to evaluate claims to help determine whether specific procedures are covered and what the appropriate payment amount for claims should be. Roles with insurance companies often pay more than nursing positions and usually involve more flexibility than the shift work that nurses are used to.

Takeaway: There are a variety of reasons that as a nurse, you may wish to move on from clinical care. If that’s the case, there are several other job opportunities that provide the ability to leverage the education and experience you already have under your belt. If you first consider why you really want to leave clinical care, it may be easier to determine which new opportunity is the best fit for you. For example, are you more interested in a flexible schedule or higher pay? Taking the time to clarify your goals for your new role can make it easier to ensure you’re happy with where you land next.