Update on Telemedicine

I recently posted about working with a telemedicine company. I received a lot of interest after that post came live. Especially because I shared the hourly rate ranged from $60-100/h. After working with that telemedicine company for 4 months now, I wanted to provide an update. 

I have heard of many nurse practitioners quit their full-time jobs to pursue telemedicine. And then I heard them get stressed because they realized it is not reliable income. Often, the schedule was posted last minute so providers were frustrated because they couldn’t plan out their month in advance. If I want reliant on steady income, I would never quit a full time job to only work telemedicine. 

In fact, my telemedicine company shifted away from paying guaranteed hourly shifts to just paying per visit – like most other telemedicine companies. The volume of patients is low and they are only paying $15 per visit. This is relatively low compared to other telemedicine companies that pay over $20 per visit. When a patient becomes available, a text message is sent to all providers in that state so one of them can accept the visit and see the patient. 

Personally, the pay rate is too low for me to waste my time. Even though the visits are only a few minutes, I don’t want to have to stop what I am doing to make myself available to see patients. Also, I don’t like the concept of feeling like I am on call all day. I have been getting text notifications all day which is quite annoying. If the telemedicine was busier, I wouldn’t mind making myself available for a given hour to see as many patients as I can. However, the visits are sporadic so will likely only see one patient per hour. 

I am waiting to see how things go for the next month and will likely just quit completely in the near future. All good things come to an end. 

Update: The telemedicine company increased their rates to $30/visit due to many visits going unanswered as providers weren’t going out of their way to pick up a visit for the low pay.