10 Best High-Paying Side Jobs For Nurses Online


Written By: Donna ReeseDonna Reese MSN, RN, CSN

Donna Reese is a freelance nurse health content writer with 37 years nursing experience. She has worked as a Family Nurse Practitioner in her local community clinic and as an RN in home health, rehabilitation, hospital, and school nursing. She utilizes her personal experiences to write from the heart to apply to her writing for various health publications, including BLOGS, newsletters, and educational materials and videos. Read Full Bio »»
MSN, RN, CSN


Our healthcare system abounds with online nursing jobs. In addition, many types of onsite nursing jobs can become virtual.

If you are looking for extra income that can be accomplished online, you have come to the right place. Adding a digital side hustle to your regular employment can conveniently boost your finances to the next level.

Here we answer the question “What are the best high-paying side jobs for nurses online? “. I provide a variety of ideas for the best high-paying side jobs for nurses online that you may find intriguing and be a great fit for your skill set. Let’s dive in!



What are the Best High-Paying Side Jobs for Nurses Online?

(The following are the 10 best high-paying side jobs for nurses online.)


SIDE JOB #1: Hospital Telemetry Nurse


About The Side-Job:

Remote telemetry may be the future of heart monitoring. Telemetry nurses are hired to work at home to save hospitals space and money and allow experienced nurses more flexibility in their schedules.

Nurses in this role virtually oversee patients who are hooked up to heart monitors while hospitalized. Many times, patients transfer from unit to unit and this electronic cardiac oversight can travel with them.

Telemetry nurses are highly trained cardiac nurses who have proven their expertise in a clinical environment. RNs seeking a job in this field need to be nationally certified as a telemetry nurse. Due to the significance of this position, typically seasoned cardiac or ICU nurses are ideal candidates for this virtual opportunity.

If you are seeking a part-time role to supplement your paycheck, consider a virtual telemetry job on weekends, evenings, or off shifts. There is a demand for this role so an employer may be eager to utilize you for whatever hours fit your schedule.

Earning Potential:

Virtual telemetry nurses are paid $58/hour on average. These positions are one of the best high-paying side jobs for nurses online. You will be paid well for your specialized expertise.


SIDE JOB #2: Online educator


About The Side-Job:

Online education can be a whole lot more than working as a virtual professor. Online possibilities to educate those in our profession are endless.

Ideas for online education side jobs can be:

• Developing nursing courses
• Writing CEs
• Educational podcasts
• Making templates, forms, and flowsheets
• Review courses for NCLEX and other content and tests
• Online lectures and motivational content
• Writing textbooks
• Educational blogs
• Adjunct online professor


Developing online educational content may be one of the best high-paying jobs for nurses online due to the variety of options to choose from. Whatever your specialty or expertise, there is a need for educational content. And you can work as you choose.

Earning Potential:

Due to the wide variety of opportunities as an online educator, it is impossible to provide an average earning estimate. However, many nurses who provide educational content have found this niche so lucrative that they have dropped their day jobs and make $80,000 to $100,000 annually as nurse educational content creators.


SIDE JOB #3: Tutor Nursing Students


About The Side-Job:

Tutoring nursing students online can be a very flexible option for a side gig. You can sign up with a tutoring company that hires nurses such as Brainfuse or set up your own tutoring side business.

As a nursing student tutor, you can advertise locally by contacting area nursing schools and giving out your contact information. You may also do well contacting your alma mater to lend your expertise to their struggling nursing students.

You can help with any subject matter in nursing that you are knowledgeable about. In addition, assisting students with nursing papers for review is another lucrative side option for this job.

While working on my master’s degree, I struggled with an advanced statistics course. Math has never been my strong point. I decided that I needed a tutor to do well in this course and keep up my GPA. Employing a tutor turned out to be just what I needed to get clarification on this subject to ace the final. It was money well spent, in my opinion.

Earning Potential:

If you choose to work for a tutoring company, most pay $18-$22/hour. As an independent tutor, you should expect to make a better hourly rate, typically between $25 to $30/hour.


SIDE JOB #4: Telephone triage


About The Side-Job:

Telephone triage nurse positions are another one of the high-paying side jobs for nurses online. In the past nurses working in a medical triage call center may have been housed in a large room with cubicles. Although this environment still exists, many call centers have allowed their nurses to work from home.

Hospital organizations often employ call center organizations to handle their triage calls. These online call centers employ a fleet of nurses across the country to sit at home and take triage calls and online chats for various hospitals, physician offices, and healthcare entities.

This home office option has proven to be an effective way to successfully perform the job duties of the nurses. Triage call centers across the country now employ virtual nurses who work from their home office or kitchen countertop. Here, nurses can take calls or chat online with patients to answer questions, give medical guidance per protocol, or make referrals and appointments for additional medical assistance.

Patient health-related questions and emergencies can happen at any hour and on weekends. Thus, nurses are needed to staff these centers around the clock. With this in mind, you should be able to flex to a part-time triage call center nurse while still working your regular job.

It is possible that some triage telehealth nurses never need to set foot outside of their homes for this job, having interviewed virtually and attended training and meetings online.

Earning Potential:

Telephone triage nurses make an average hourly rate of $38 (ZipRecruiter).


SIDE JOB #5: Psychiatric Online Help


About The Side-Job:

Psychiatric medicine is perfectly suited for telehealth. As a psychiatric mental health RN, you can easily do your job via telephone or Zoom. You can conduct assessments, monitor medications, and perform health teaching and counseling via this route. Most patients seeking mental health services prefer telehealth psychiatric appointments due to their reluctance to leave the house or go to a doctor.

Having a compact nursing license comes in handy for any remote job. In particular, many mental health virtual help agencies require that their nurses can legally cross state lines virtually, making a compact license a necessity.

Psychiatric nurses are in high demand. Many remote psychiatric nursing jobs are willing to accept whatever hours you can give them, making this role one of the best high-paying side jobs for nurses online.

Earning Potential:

Psychiatric nurses make $55.60 /hour on average (Indeed).


SIDE JOB #6: Medical Transcriber


About The Side-Job:

Some high-paying side jobs for nurses online can be indirectly related to nursing, such as a medical transcriber. Medical transcriptionists listen to voice recordings that providers dictate and then type and organize the data into readable documents for permanent records.

Sometimes called healthcare documentation specialists, transcriptionists need to possess accurate typing and organizational skills along with a knowledge of medical terminology. Many nurses fit this description and therefore find the job of medical transcriptionist to be an excellent side gig.

RNs love the flexibility of the work that can be done from home whenever they have some extra time. You can put on some headphones and type on breaks or in the wee hours of the morning when you can’t sleep. As long as you meet the deadline for an assignment, nobody typically cares when you do the transcription.

Earning Potential:

Per ZipRecruiter, remote medical transcriptionists make $21/hour on average.


SIDE JOB #7: Utilization Review


About The Side-Job:

Utilization review (UR) nurses can work part-time from home. UR nurses work for insurance companies, Medicare, and some companies, such as CVS.

As a UR nurse, you will gather clinical information and apply clinical criteria to determine appropriate care. You may also review medical bills for relatedness and reasonable fees. Your job can be done remotely as all billing and medical information is online.

Many companies are seeking nurses part-time for utilization management work. With this in mind along with the flexible nature of the work, you should be able to juggle a regular job with a part-time gig as a remote UR nurse.

Earning Potential:

Utilization review nurses make $42/hour on average per ZipRecruiter.


SIDE JOB #8: Diabetic Educator


About The Side-Job:

Diabetic nurse educators often work in hospitals or for diabetic product companies. However, these specialty nurses are also needed in private physician offices, long-term care facilities, and senior living spaces.

In these less intensive and sometimes ambulatory care environments, diabetic nurses can function remotely. The pandemic proved that diabetic nurse educators could work from home quite effectively via Zoom or by phone, teaching and monitoring patients.

You can set up virtual appointments with patients to mutually fit both of your schedules.

Although not all diabetic educators are certified, many jobs require this specialized recognition. To increase your chances for hire, you may want to become board-certified as a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist.

Earning Potential:

According to ZipRecruiter, diabetic nurse educators make $49/hour on average.


SIDE JOB #9: Nurse Job Coach


About The Side-Job:

Nurse job coaches typically are seasoned nurses who share their expertise in the profession with other nurses who may be struggling to find work or career direction.

This is one of the many entrepreneurial high-paying side jobs for nurses online that offers maximum flexibility and freedom. In this role, you can work whenever you want online for as many hours as you wish. You are the boss.

As a nurse job coach, you need to set up a website promoting your role and then establish a presence online to get the word out to struggling nurses about your services. You set up virtual appointments to interview your clients and then establish a “game plan” for their success as a nurse.

Most nurse job coaches charge hourly for a session.

Earning Potential:

Nurse job coaches make between $25-$50 per hour. Many charge differently according to each client and what the coach feels they can afford. For example, a new grad nurse may not be able to spend $50/hour, while a nurse with a high-paying job can afford the higher rate.


SIDE JOB #10: Medical Product Patient Liaison


About The Side-Job:

RNs working as nurse liaisons for a medical product is a bit of a unique but growing role. A nurse can be a liaison for a wide variety of medical and healthcare products and devices.

Here an RN may serve as a medical resource for the organization or its patients. Duties can include virtual patient teaching and some soft sales.

Some product liaison possibilities can include:

• Supplements
• Home monitoring
• Home testing kits
• Durable medical equipment
• Nutrition company
• Natural cosmetics and skin products


I recently had the opportunity to further explore this role for a home diabetes monitoring company. Here nurses worked with patients with type 2 diabetes to help them better understand and monitor their blood sugars and blood pressure with home monitoring equipment.

These nurse liaisons worked for the company but also advocated for the patients to help them become comfortable with the equipment. To achieve this goal, the nurses regularly checked in with the patients online or by phone to discuss a healthy lifestyle, troubleshoot their monitoring equipment, and serve as a support person.

Nurses in this role can make their own schedules to fit around their day jobs.

Earning Potential:

Nurses working for some medical product companies (such as Medtronic) make top dollar, many times over 100K (full-time). Smaller companies such as the one that I described pay the going rate for RNs, which is $43.77/hour according to Indeed.com.



My Final Thoughts


If before reading this article you were asking “What are the best high-paying side jobs for nurses online?”, I hope that I have answered your question. As you can see, there is quite an array of possibilities for working from home on your computer.

Many online side hustles mesh well with a busy nurse’s schedule due to their flexible nature. Some of the best high-paying side jobs for nurses online may be a simple and realistic option to make extra money. And you will not have to travel beyond your home to make your financial dreams come true.


Donna Reese MSN, RN, CSN
Donna Reese is a freelance nurse health content writer with 37 years nursing experience. She has worked as a Family Nurse Practitioner in her local community clinic and as an RN in home health, rehabilitation, hospital, and school nursing.