How to Get A Telemedicine Nurse Practitioner Job
Whether you're fresh out of your graduate nursing program, in-between jobs or looking to expand your current skills, telemedicine offers a whole new realm of opportunities for nurse practitioners.
What is a Telemedicine Nurse Practitioner?
Telemedicine
Telemedicine is essentially online healthcare; the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology.
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH,) "Telemedicine is the use of electronic information and communications technologies to provide and support health care when distance separates the participants."
What Is a Telemedicine Nurse Practitioner
Just as it sounds, a telemedicine nurse practitioner is an NP who practices via telemedicine, or works remotely, rather than in person. This allows many nurse practitioners the ability to work from home.
A telemedicine NP's job, as ZipRecruiter elaborates, is, "to provide remote treatment for patients through online consultation and telehealth services."
The main responsibility of a telemedicine NP is to provide consultations and offer appropriate recommendations and treatment options and, if needed, advise a patient to seek additional care.
A telemedicine nurse practitioner may frequently utilize any of the following communications technology in order to interact with patients:
- Chat systems
- Email
- Social media
- Webcams
It is becoming increasingly imperative for nurse practitioners, who are frequently the primary healthcare providers for disadvantaged and rural populations, to develop the skills, knowledge required to effectively use telemedicine.
Telemedicine is becoming an increasingly common way to reach patients, and patients are becoming more accepting of remote access to quality and cost-effective care.
What Is a Telemedicine Nurse Practitioners Salary
On average, according to Ziprecruiter, telemedicine NPs make $113,883 a year.
There are some annual salaries as high as $242,500 and some as low as $28,000. But the majority of salaries range between $74,000 (25th percentile) to $122,500 (75th percentile) across the United States.
To estimate the most accurate annual salaries, ZipRecruiter continuously scans its database of millions of active jobs published locally throughout America.
Jobs for Telemedicine Nurse Practitioners
The opportunities available for nurse practitioners in telemedicine are immense, with a wide array of roles and duties one can take on. As a nurse practitioner, you already have a specialized skill set in high demand.
The creation of telemedicine services allows you to offer those specialized skills to a larger number of patients and in a greater range of capacities.
And as the popularity of telemedicine continues to grow, you can expect an even broader and more prolific range of jobs in the field to emerge.
Telemedicine Positions
Despite their similar names and frequently mistaken interchangeable use, telehealth and telemedicine are not the same thing. Whereas telemedicine specifically involves clinical services, telehealth can involve a wide range of healthcare services that may or may not include clinical care.
With this distinction in mind, also consider telehealth opportunities in your job search. Roles in telehealth may incorporate NP specialties while allowing you to apply your skills in a non-clinical setting, monitoring patients, identifying risks and educating them on how to interact with you via telehealth effectively.
In-hospital Collaboration
As a member of a healthcare team, you’ll use telemedicine to collaborate almost instantaneously with remote specialists. These opportunities are particularly important and on the rise in rural settings where specialists may not be onsite or easily accessible.
ICUs
Some states, including Washington, Alaska, Texas, Maryland and New York, have opened hubs of critical care NPs and nurses who monitor patients remotely to monitor wound care, manage sepsis and assist with other intensive care or aftercare duties that don’t require an in-person encounter.
NICUs
Similarly to ICUs, telemedicine in NICUs for newborn care is currently being incorporated into various intensive care units across the nation. One initial trial with ICUs using telemedicine found that this virtual access reduced the need to transfer newborns due to respiratory problems.
Home Care
One of the preeminent uses of telemedicine is in home care for minor needs, initial assessments and routine monitoring. Opportunities in this area will only continue to rise as the general population becomes more comfortable using remote communications technology.
School-Based Health Center
As a school nurse, you now have the benefit of using telemedicine to connect you remotely with a network of other school nurses for collaboration on student care. While schools are opening remotely, you can also provide many of your same school nursing services to students via telemedicine.
Finding a Telemedicine Nurse Practitioner Job
Here are some important things to consider when researching and applying to telemedicine companies:
- How does the business operate (ie. what is its model)?
- Does it accept insurance, work under a corporate contract or do patients pay membership fees?
- Does it accept insurance, work under a corporate contract or do patients pay membership fees?
- What can you order and how do you follow up on results?
- Do you determine what diagnostic testing is required or are you limited to a protocol? Or do you treat problems based on symptoms alone?
- Are you beholden to a limited formulary or can you prescribe any medications?
- How do you follow up with patients and in what time frame?
- What are the telemedicine regulations in the state you’ll be practicing?
- Will you need to obtain a special telemedicine license? Does the state require an in-state physician oversee all patient encounters and treatment programs with telemedicine NPs?
- Will you need to meet with all new patients first in person before beginning telemedicine consults and treatments?
Beyond these key points, the following considerations can help you narrow down your search to find a company that will work for you, as much as you will work for them.
Patients
Who are the patients you’ll be seeing and what expectations will they bring to the encounter? Under what parameters (time, place and manner) will you conduct patient encounters? What does the typical workflow with a patient look like?
Compensation
In addition to determining how the business operates in terms of receiving payments for care provided, you also want to understand how you will receive payment from the employer for your work.
Shifts
Is the job full or part time? How much flexibility will you have over your schedule? Will you need to work nights and weekends? What about holidays? How long are standard shifts, and will you ever need to work overtime?
Licensing and Insurance requirements
You may need to obtain a special licenses to practice as a telemedicine NP in certain states or settings. If an employer operates in multiple states, you will need to obtain a nursing license in each of those states.
You also want to know whether the employer covers the malpractice insurance or if you’ll be responsible for having your own.
How to Stand Out and Get Hired
In addition to all the usual qualities you would present to any employer, certain skills are particularly valuable for telemedicine NPs and, therefore, on the radar of most employers in the field.
- An accurate and focused medical CV
- A demeanor that excels in remote encounters and builds rapport with patients
- A clean record of quality care
- A history of and commitment to personal accountability
- A fundamental understanding of telemedicine
- Medical licenses in multiple states
Professional Organizations and Group Practices
You can further stand out to employers by joining one or more professional organizations or groups. When you join a telemedicine group practice such as Wheel, you gain access to consultation opportunities via remote virtual care across multiple platforms.
Wheel makes it easy to get started in telemedicine, with a platform built exclusively to provide greater opportunities for NPs, MDs,and DOs to care for a greater number of patients while, at the same time, finding a better work-life balance.
With Wheel, you are able to focus on your work, with more flexibility and support and less bureaucracy than you’ve ever experienced at a physical location.
At Wheel, we work with a variety of partners to match providers to the best remote care opportunities for their skill sets. Through these partnerships, our providers have everything they need to do their work at their fingertips.
To begin your telemedicine career with Wheel, fill out our brief pre-application screener to help us learn more about you and your background. This way, we can be sure to find you the right matches for you.
