How to Get Started in Telemedicine as a Nurse Practitioner: What I Would Do Today
A practical roadmap for finding your place in telemedicine—even if you have only one state license and no previous telehealth job.
If you’re trying to figure out how to get started in telemedicine as a nurse practitioner, you may be wondering what you should do first.
Should you apply for more telemedicine NP jobs? Obtain additional state licenses? Take a telemedicine course? Completely redo your résumé and LinkedIn profile?
To get started in telemedicine as a nurse practitioner, first identify which virtual-care roles fit your specialty and clinical experience. Then search for opportunities using your current license, evaluate whether telemedicine fits how you prefer to work, and study actual employer demand before investing in additional licenses or certifications.
The problem isn’t that there’s no information available. The problem is that nobody tells you which steps make sense for your specialty, experience, state license, and career goals—or what order to take them in.
Getting into telemedicine looks different today
When I started working in telemedicine, it was before COVID—before most nurse practitioners were actively searching for remote positions or even considering virtual care as a long-term career.
Quite frankly, I believe I got lucky.
I happened to find Maven and later The Pill Club, two early telemedicine platforms that aligned closely with my women’s health background. I was searching at a time when far fewer nurse practitioners were searching, and I found opportunities that fit my specialty.
I can’t pretend that getting started in telemedicine today looks exactly like it did when I entered the field—because it doesn’t.
More nurse practitioners now want the flexibility and work-life balance that telemedicine can offer. You can open a remote nurse practitioner position on LinkedIn and immediately see a large applicant count. When you’re trying to break into the field, that can feel discouraging before you’ve even submitted the application.
If you’ve applied to multiple telemedicine jobs and haven’t heard anything, it doesn’t automatically mean you aren’t qualified. It may mean you haven’t identified where your particular background fits—or that you’re competing for the same highly visible positions as everyone else.
You may not need multiple state licenses
One of the biggest assumptions I hear from nurse practitioners is that they must obtain several state licenses before anyone will hire them for a telemedicine job.
That isn’t always true.
There are telemedicine opportunities that require only one state license. Local clinics, specialty practices, and healthcare organizations may also need providers who can care for patients virtually within a single state.
Having multiple licenses can expand your potential job market, but more licenses do not automatically make you a stronger candidate. Your specialty, clinical experience, scope of practice, location, and the services an employer provides all matter.
One strategically chosen license may eventually create more value than several licenses obtained without a clear reason. But before spending money on any additional license, I would first determine whether there are opportunities that fit the license and experience I already have.
The part of telemedicine nobody should skip
Before investing heavily in licenses or restructuring your career around remote work, you should also ask yourself a more basic question:
Do I actually want to practice this way?
Telemedicine can offer tremendous flexibility. There may be no commute, more control over your schedule, and the ability to work from home.
But working from home and enjoying virtual clinical practice are not necessarily the same thing.
Telemedicine can also create professional isolation. You may have limited access to immediate clinical support, experience frustrating technology problems, work within rapid or productivity-driven workflows, and find that the boundary between work and home begins to disappear.
Some nurse practitioners thrive in that environment. Others discover that they miss working alongside a clinical team more than they expected.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue telemedicine. It means you should understand the work you’re pursuing before spending thousands of dollars trying to qualify for every possible opportunity.
Getting started in telemedicine is not about collecting licenses, applying everywhere, and hoping something works. It is about identifying where you fit, understanding the market, and making one strategic decision at a time.
If I were trying to enter telemedicine today, here is the order I would follow...
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