Best Work-at-Home Jobs for Nurses

By Holly Reisem Hanna

When I decided to sign up for nursing school, I knew that I wanted to work in a clinical environment. But after working a grueling year on a pediatric unit at a hospital, I started to look for other opportunities. As I began my search for something non-clinical, I was amazed at the host of possibilities available to nurses.

Over the years, I've worked in a wide variety of nursing settings from prior authorization and medical record review to clinical research; in fact, that's one of the great things about nursing, its versatility.

Oh, and let's not forget the high demand for nurses! According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for registered nurses is expected to grow 26 percent between 2010 and 2020, which is a faster-than-average growth rate for a job in the United States.

If you're looking to leave the clinical environment and ditch the commute, here are some of the best work-at-home jobs for nurses! 

If You Have an Advanced Degree:

Online Nursing Faculty.

If you have an MSN or a Ph.D. in nursing — you can teach online nursing classes to college students. To teach BSN coursework, you must have an MSN degree, and to teach MSN nursing classes you have must a Ph.D.

Excelsior College, Western Governors University, and Strayer University are just a few of the colleges that hire online nursing instructors.

Nursing Evaluator.

If you have an MSN degree, you can grade nursing students' academic submissions.

Western Governors University hires for this position.

If You Have You Have an RN:

Telephonic Case Manager.

Case Management is probably the most well known work-at-home job for nurses. As a Case Manager, you'll oversee your patients care plan making sure that they receive the appropriate care, resources, and referrals so that they have can a successful outcome.

Cigna and Humana hire remote Case Managers.

Remote Diabetic Educator. 

These positions usually require a Bachelor's Degree along with an RN or an RD (Registered Dietitian) license. As a Diabetic Educator, you'll work with diabetics to ensure proper disease understanding, knowledge, and diabetic care, routine, and resources.

Aetna hires telephonic Diabetes Educators.

Freelance Nursing Writers.

Nursing writers write content for test prep courses, instructional manuals, and other training materials. If you're interested in this sort of work, other terms to search for are, Nurse Certification Writers, Nurse Research Writers, Learning Development Writers, and Medical Writers.

GEISWriters.com hires for this online nursing job.

Telephone Triage Registered Nurse.

In this role, the nurse performs screening calls to determine the appropriate path of care for patients. Sometimes called, Care Advisor RNs.

Medtronic and Carenet Healthcare Services hire Telephone Triage Nurse.

Remote Concurrent Review Nurse.

In this role, you will review medical records to make sure that the code billed was the appropriate code for the services rendered. These positions do require some technical writing skills, as you will contact providers for additional information and denial of payment notices. Other keywords to search for if you're interested in this position are, Clinical Appeals Nurse, RN Appeal Writer, Review Nurse, and Surveillance and Utilization Review (SURS) Nurse.

UnitedHealth Group and CareCentrix hire for this online nursing position.

Virtual Clinical Research Associate (CRA).

Clinical Research Associates oversee all aspects of pharmaceutical research studies, from recruiting and monitoring to budgeting and reporting. These positions require a Bachelor's degree, an RN nursing degree, or experience as a Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC). From my experience, the majority of these positions are home-based, but they do require some travel.

PPD, Covance, and Premier Research all hire home-based CRAs.

Legal Nurse Consultant.

First, Legal Nurse Consultants work on their own as independent contractors; they are not employees. Second, you will need additional training for this position, and the one I'm most familiar with is Vickie Milazzo's (because I have received her brochures in the mail). Even if you don't take her training, her website has a lot of great information on how to get clients, how much you can earn, as well as success stories. If you're interested in this career, also check out Alice Adam's story — it has lots useful information about the industry.

If You Have an RN, LPN or LVN:

Remote Quality Improvement Nurse.

As a Quality Improvement Nurse, you will review hospitals' nursing record documentation for completeness, accuracy, and appropriate level coding. These positions usually contain a teaching element, where the nurse educates the staff on the importance of proper documentation and coding practices. Usually requires a fair amount of travel; on some job postings, it's 70 to 80 percent travel time. If you're interested in applying for this position, also search the keywords Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialist, Data Abstractor, and Nurse Consultant.

Excite Health Partners hires for this online nursing job.

Remote Teacher Assistant – LPN or LVN.

Teacher Assistants help the instructor with a wide variety of tasks, like assisting with assignments, tutoring, and classroom support.

Achieve Test Prep hires for this remote nursing job.

Spin Your Nursing Knowledge Into a New Career:

Virtual Healthcare Recruiter.

In this position, you'll search for and screen candidates for various healthcare positions. Most of these positions require a Bachelor's Degree with a healthcare background. Also, search for the keyword, Nurse Recruiter or RN Recruiter.

HCA hires remote-based healthcare recruiters.

Clinical Sales Specialist.

As a sales representative, you will work with doctors, nurses, case managers, and other healthcare professionals in clinical settings to educate them on healthcare products, services, medications, and programs. Most sales positions offer a base salary with commission on sales or sign-ups. The majority of sales positions require overnight travel, usually about 50 percent of the time, the other portion you will work from home. Other terms to search for are Healthcare Sales Rep, Clinical Marketing Manager, and Clinical Sales Representative.

CVS hires Clinical Sales Reps.

You can also take your nursing knowledge and spin it into a whole new career, by starting a business. In fact, that's just what Elizabeth Irvine did. Once a pediatric nurse, Elizabeth now runs a business where she educates and empowers women through serenity jewelry, inspirational books, and soul-full workshops and retreats. You can check out her story here.

Still Not Finding Your Dream Nursing Job?

FlexJobs is my favorite place to search for work-at-home jobs because they let you refine your search by job type, schedule, job category, telecommuting level, company accolades, career level, and title. Being able to break down your job search into these specific categories will help you find what you're looking for faster. Plus, all their job postings are hand-screened for legitimacy, so you don't have to worry about dealing with scams.

Have you brought your nursing job home? We'd love to hear about it, or if you've spun off into a new career, we'd love to hear about that too!

You’ll Also Love These Posts:

Studies have shown if you like this blog post — you will also love the following articles. I handpicked them just for you!

• Why This Nurse Made the Switch to Medical Coding and Billing
• How I Was Able to Hang Up My Nursing Stethoscope and Become a Work-at-Home Mom
• Where to Find Work From Home Medical Insurance Jobs

This page includes affiliate links. Please be aware we only promote advertising from companies that we feel we can legitimately recommend to our readers. Please see our disclosure policy for further information.