Nurse entrepreneurs are in a position where they can have their own business in the industry of health and wellness because they possess quite a unique set of qualifications. Nurses with the mindset of an entrepreneur can pursue various paths and potential business opportunities. If you have a degree in nursing, you can combine that with your skill and experience to start a business of your own. The only way to guarantee your success after launching your own business is to focus on your own level of expertise.
As the concept of nurse entrepreneurship now exists, you don’t have to work in conjunction with a doctor if you want to dive into the business world as a nurse. There are many options for you to do business while being a nurse. Your expertise and knowledge in the area of health can help you own your own business on the side, even if you also work at a hospital.
Benefits of Being a Nurse Entrepreneur
1. You Are Your Own Boss
As a nurse entrepreneur, you decide your schedule and no longer have to work for 12 hours as you often did before. You also don’t have to work every day of the week either. Basically, being a nurse entrepreneur affords you the freedom to set the schedule for your work, and the only thing that limits you is your income. When you have sufficient time, you will no longer have to miss out on important events, and you also get to spend more time with your family.
2. Opportunity to Develop Your Career
Nurse entrepreneurs get the opportunity to pursue their interests in the medical field. If you have only ever had an interest in clinical work, you can focus on it as a nurse entrepreneur. Whichever area of interest you have, be it working as a consultant, birthing coach, or fitness coach, you can focus entirely on that one particular area. You can also choose an area that does not require one-on-one engagement with clients if that is what you prefer.
3. You Can Hone Your Business Skills
If you have always had a knack for business, you can further develop your business acumen as a nurse entrepreneur. You also won’t have to depend on your monthly salary. Being a nurse entrepreneur provides you with the opportunity to determine your pay rate – make it an hourly, weekly, or monthly rate. As you grow and learn, you will become more successful with time.
“The options are numerous and could be aligned with your interest, schedule, and skills”
Business Ideas for Nurse Entrepreneurs
There are various business ideas available for nurses who want to become entrepreneurs. Another determining factor is whether you want to be paying visits to your patients at their homes or have a place where they can come see you. The options are numerous and could be aligned with your interest, schedule, and skills.
The following are some of the business ideas for nurse entrepreneurs
- Legal nurse consultant
- Specialized care provider
- Nurse health coach
- Nurse blogger
- Hospice giver
- Medical product sales
- Doula or childbirth education
Let’s examine each of these opportunities.
1. Legal Nurse Consultant
If you are one of those nurses that like paying attention to the details of a patient’s condition by taking a careful look at their patient files, a good business idea for you would be to set up shop as a legal nurse consultant (LNC). LNC involves offering professional advice for legal cases. This means that your job as a legal nurse consultant is to give your clients advice on any legal matters.
Legal nurse consultants are often consulted by lawyers when they want to fully understand the facts of the case they are handling. As a nurse who is also a legal consultant, you could also be asked to analyze the testimony in legal cases to ensure that there are no mistakes. The positions in which legal nurse consultants can work in the legal system are numerous. Furthermore, as a business owner and legal consultant, you are free to choose the cases you want to work on. This means that you retain full autonomy over how your time is spent.
2. Specialized Care Provider
Another great idea in nurse entrepreneurship is becoming a specialized care provider. This leverages the skills you have developed and the experience that you have gained throughout your career as a nurse. Owning a business as a specialized care provider will demand that you have those skills and expertise. This is also a perfect business for you, especially if you prefer to have a small business or you want to step out and focus your practice on a single field.
Examples of businesses for specialized care providers include childbirth training, in-home care, lactation consulting, telehealth, fertility consulting, mindfulness and stress reduction, and alternative or holistic medical care services. You can combine your online DBA degree with your passion and turn it into a business. What you have to do is select your preferred area of nursing or the area in which you have extensive knowledge and leverage it to build a successful business.
3. Nurse Health Coach
Quite a number of nurses work in a clinic setting where they are members of a team that diagnoses patients based on their symptoms, and treats them. However, this may not allow them the freedom to share their views or opinions about the approach that should be followed to administer treatment to a patient. Nurses in this environment may feel like their knowledge and expertise are underutilized.
Being a nurse health coach is a great nurse entrepreneurial idea that might appeal to you if the above situation is similar to yours. As a nurse health coach, you will be in the capacity to assess the health goals of individuals and create a plan that will help them reach those goals. It involves taking a holistic look at the health of patients and considers not just the current symptoms of patients but also makes long-term projections about their health.
Being able to pinpoint the outcomes of the health conditions of patients, in the long run, is rewarding as it gives you the opportunity to work closely with your patients and help them reach their health goals.
Being a nurse health coach puts you in the position to consult the offices of doctors or hospitals. Most nurse health coaches have their own practices and even have one-on-one meetings with their patients.
4. Nurse Blogger
The world today is full of information that’s all readily available on the internet. A lot of people browse the internet in search of information on various topics, and issues relating to health are no exception. Although the internet is loaded with helpful resources, quite a few of them are rife with misinformation, and that is particularly dangerous, especially where health is concerned.
As a trained and qualified nurse, your knowledge as it relates to the provision of healthcare is extensive and could be used to proffer solutions to different people. The people searching the internet for solutions to their health problems would very much appreciate your help. This is what makes the idea of being a nurse blogger another one of the best ideas for nurse entrepreneurs.
You already have the knowledge and credentials, and you can create your own blog so patients can easily reach you. On your blog, you can share your opinions about the field of nursing and the medical industry in general. The benefit of being a nurse blogger is that it is an easy business to start. In addition to your day job, you can provide a medical perspective to some articles when you offer to be interviewed by journalists.
Furthermore, you can either use blogging to fast-track the growth of your business or you can make blogging your only business. This means that if you have a different business, there is nothing stopping you from creating a blog for it. Another benefit of being a nurse blogger is that you can work from home either part-time or full-time.
5. Hospice Caregiver
In today’s age, there is a growing demand for in-home care for the elderly who are experiencing deteriorating physical and mental health. Hospice caregivers are people who provide care for persons with terminal illnesses. Since the individuals who need this type of care are almost at the end of their lives, this job goes beyond regular nursing and also requires more skill.
Several hospice caregivers tend to become passionately interested in the well-being of the patient, even as much as the family members. Having to deal with the mental and physical well-being of many people is not an easy task, nevertheless, it definitely has its rewards.
If you have any interest in starting up a business as a hospice caregiver, you should know that it will demand a lot of hard work. You will not find it easy either as a person or as a business owner. Being a hospice caregiver is emotionally demanding, and you might not be able to handle it without the right level of emotional maturity.
Therefore, be aware of every risk involved in the business before venturing into it. The risks involved do not pertain to the patients and their family members only; they also pertain to you. Note, however, that this is a perfect line of work for you if you love making people feel relaxed and cared for, especially at this difficult stage of their lives.
6. Medical Product Sales
This option of health entrepreneurship is not focused on your skills as a qualified nurse. Instead, it focuses on the knowledge you have about the medical field in its entirety. You can start a business that is focused on the sale of health products. You can decide to sell products that are specific to nurses or general health products. Scrubs, drugs, medical equipment, and accessories could be included in the things you sell.
Although you may not be directly taking care of your patients or offering them intensive care, you will still make use of your knowledge to solve health problems. You also get to leverage your knowledge of medical tools and medications used to treat various health issues.
One advantage that owning a medical sales business gives you is the opportunity to be your boss. You decide what time your business opens and closes, and you don’t have to be on call at night.
7. Birthing Coach or Childbirth Education
This is a business idea for nurse entrepreneurs that are focused on the beginning of life for a person. Unlike the case of hospice caregiving, where care is offered at the near end of life, you will be in a position to support childbirth. Several nurses go into business as birthing coaches (doula) to provide childbirth education to nursing mothers.
There are many paths that you can take when you want to start a business as a birthing coach. There are some birthing coaches that prefer to work with pregnant women one-on-one, to get them prepared for the time of labor. When it is time for labor, these nurses will be on-call and on-site.
The other aspect of this business idea for nurses is that nurses become instructors who hold classes for women who are getting ready for childbearing. This aspect is a lot less demanding than continuously being present to assist the expecting couples on a one-on-one basis.
Regardless of the option you choose, this business is one that provides you with an opportunity to be a part of a rewarding and exciting aspect of human life. Furthermore, it does not impose a strict schedule on you in the way that working in a hospital does.
Bottom line
As a result of the continuous growth and development of the healthcare sector, even registered nurses now have the opportunity to delve into the health business. There is a wide variety of business opportunities available, and registered nurses who are interested in working for themselves can take advantage of these opportunities in either a full-time or part-time capacity. One of the advantages of being a nurse entrepreneur is having the freedom to create your own schedule and not having to be on call for 12 hours per shift, as is the case with typical nursing jobs.
