Top Side Hustles for PTs, OTs, SLPs and Assistants

I've created a comprehensive list of REAL side hustles (no MLMs) that you can start today! Some are using your degree and some are not, and I've chosen a list that includes very minimal extra education or money needed to start this side hustle and have included both side hustles you can do as contractors (employed by someone else) as well as those you can do as your own business. 

(If you are wanting more help with starting your online business side hustle, please go here to learn more about our Side Hustle Program: https://www.alternativehealthcarecareers.com/sidehustle. It provides you with a complete course on self publishing, on creating courses/memberships, on podcasting, on ergonomics, on CEU creation, on virtual wellness and much more!)

1. Telehealth:

• I love telehealth because its fully remote, so no time is wasted with unpaid commuting
• You can do it at a moments notice, very flexible
• High paying  (often around $50 per hour)
• No extra education needed and very little training needed (just often tech/software training)
• Rewarding, still get to help people

2. Home Health Contracting:

In this side hustle, you could go to homes near you to provide in person home outpatient therapy. If you are wondering what company you can use for this, I recommend Luna and have a interview herehttps://youtu.be/b-MyGalg_wE  if you want to learn more and please use this link https://share.hsforms.com/1Tykc5DU9TRKLNc3iB6Snpg2rcdh  to sign up to talk to our friendly Ashley to ask any of your questions! 

But you could also do this on your own as your own business! 

Pros:

• Flexible, you can work during your lunch, during the day, or during the evening
• They have a software that optimizes your commute
• Very fast documentation
• High pay, $70 per hour
• They have a safety technology so they monitor your safety as well
• Patient treatments are 45-55 mins and you get to keep your patients for their whole recovery
• You get paid for no shows
• They have a bonus structure where the more you see, the more you get paid
• As a contractor, you can deduct your cell phone, your car and gas and much more!

3. Expert for companies/Consultant:

I've actually personally consulted with several companies on how to grow the reach of their medical equipment. I've also known other therapists and assistants who have consulted on the actual use and making of medical products. And I've known therapists who have made videos or education for companies as well. 

Your knowledge is very valuable to software developers, to medical product designers, to clothing companies or shoe companies, to name a few!

4. CEU provider:

Summit, PESI, MedBridge (and there may be more) will all pay you either a flat one time feel or a monthly earnings for producing CEU content.  This is a great side hustle as you do not need any extra training or education and it's often a one time production and then you get paid. 

5. Ergonomics and/or Home Modifications (either as your own business or as a contractor):

Ergonomics and/or home modifications is something that assistants or therapists can do as a business or as full time job but it is also a wonderful contracting opportunity as well.

Who hires you? Companies like Briotix, Atlas, ATI often will pay you when they get contracts near your area and you can earn very well - often roughly $1500 for the weekend!

Who can do ergonomics/home modifications? Occupational therapists, OT  assistants, physical therapists or physical therapy assistants (and assistants do NOT need oversight unless performing workers compensation claims). 

What is ergonomics? Basically it's injury prevention. You would either work with individuals or with companies and provide equipment and injury risk assessments, education either to individuals or as an in-service, provide educational materials, provide equipment recommendations etc.

Home modifications similarly is where you help assess the inside and outside of a home or office for safety and provide education and recommendations.

Educational requirements? You do not necessarily need certifications but they do help - and you can complete them on your own time, from the comfort of your home, and in just a few hours. We have an office, an industrial and an remote/telehealth ergonomics CEU and certification here that includes a career section as well as a business section (including website template) https://www.alternativehealthcarecareers.com/ergonomics. 

If you are wanting to get CAPS, which is the best certification for home modifications, then please check out our online CAPS program which includes a website template and free business course: https://www.alternativehealthcarecareers.com/homemod 

 If you are interested in learning more, check out our free YouTube training here: https://www.youtube.com/live/TOtox2SnUy8?feature=share 

6.  Courses/Memberships/Blogging:

This is my current side hustle and so I can really speak to the pros and cons of this route. I will say it took me at least a year to start seeing any real income but if you can hang in there and be consistent after a year, then things can really take off - I now make 6 figures while still working full time!

The pros is that you can start this using your skills today! Think of what your talents or unique knowledge is and then try to monetize this in a various ways such as a blog, a course or a membership to name a few ideas. 

The cons is that at first, there is a lot of promotions you need to do on social media and you need to have amazing customer service and amazing courses or memberships so that people really share and love your course. If you can keep doing this consistently, then you'll create a successful side hustle in 1-2 years. Another strategy to grow faster is to use advertising but I prefer the above as an organic method and let your course results grow your business as that's the most consistent. 

7. Selling Items 

When it comes to selling items, you have a lot of options! You can do whole sale selling, you can create items from Alibaba and sell items through your own brand on Amazon or other services, you can create your own unique items without using manufacturers like Alibaba and sell on Shopify, and so much more!

You can sell big items like desks or small items like PDFs, the sky is really the limit. 

The pros of this is that this can be easily set up to be a system that you could hand off to a contractor and often through Amazon, items can be sold quite easily and without much difficulty. The hardest challenge will be initially in creating your product and getting it accepted into Amazon - once accepted then it's much more passive. If you go the Shopify route, then you'll have to work much harder to get traffic and so doing promotion on social media or paid advertising is recommended to get sales. 

8. Affiliate Marketing:

What is affiliate marketing? Have you seen on Facebook, a person who says "use my special MedBridge code XXX"? This is affiliate marketing. Basically, you can connect with a variety of companies who will pay you a small amount in order to share a unique link that tracks people who sign up from you under that link to their software or product. 

What are some example affiliate links you could get?

• Amazon
• MedBridge and other CEU providers
• Us, Alternative Healthcare Careers - https://www.alternativehealthcarecareers.com/affiliate_users/sign_up 
• Financial products
• Credit cards or bank products

What are the pros of this?

This is very quick to set up and takes no money at all. It's very easy to do as once you get your special link, then it's literally just copying and pasting it where appropriate.

It can be very passive as once your link gets seen, then however clicks on it, you'll get paid. And many times, if we are promoting these links on Facebook or YouTube, then these links last a lifetime once we put it out there. However, affiliate marketing works best when you see comments or posts and then you reply with a helpful comment that includes the appropriate affiliate link. 

Often payouts are also minimal - Amazon pays just a few percent and MedBridge pays about $25 for example. But hey, it all adds up!

9. Youtuber: 

I have a YouTube channel that has about 3500 subscribers and I make about $75 a month. However, some channels make much more - so this could be a very lucrative side hustle!

This is great as you need little to no money to start, it's not a big learning curve, and really all you need is your brain, energy and time to create videos. 

You can create videos on all sorts of topics from kids toys, to injury prevention, to stroke recovery to cars! 

What I will say is that it's very slow at first to gain traction but then it does more passively pick up once you have about 1,000 subscribers and for me the pay is not that great, but if you talk about finances then you can get paid very well. 

10. Self Publishing:

I've self published 2 books and so I'm happy to share my personal experience here.  I think this is a great side hustle as it just takes a little time to write your book and put it up on Amazon. And it's free to put your book up on Amazon. 

I think the downside of this side hustle is that unless you have a large following, you're likely not going to make a ton off of your book. I make about $100 a year, but hey once I wrote my book, I haven't done anything in terms of promotion or marketing and so thats 100% passive money now!

And there are people that make great money doing this - and perhaps that's by making more books or by doing more marketing. But overall, there is very little learning curve to do this, all you need is your writing and a computer to do this, and Amazon takes care of everything else so it's really easy and no cost!

11. Virtual Assisting, Website Services, Advertising Services Etc.. 

This is a potentially very high paying side hustle! Some things you could provide could be blogging, virtual assisting, business optimization, advertising on YouTube, Google, Instagram, or Facebook help, website creation to name a few ideas.

The great thing about this side hustle is that you can learn a lot simply from YouTube or taking some simple online courses and this is often online and relatively low cost or no cost to start.  It may take some time as you may have to offer low cost or free services at first to gain client examples and testimonials but if you can gain an audience or connect with people who can refer you to others than this could be a great side hustle that you can really do when you have time and on your own time. 

 12. Teaching English as a 2nd Language:

There are a variety of companies that allow you from the comfort of your home, online, teach English across of the country. A common company is VIP Kids but there are several others.

This is a nice side hustle as it's online, it's flexible, and it can be fun and rewarding! You still get to help children but in a different way and maybe less stressful way than therapy.

The only con of this is that it only pays about $20 an hour so it's not extremely high paying but it's a quick and easy side hustle to get started in! 

Other Ideas:

Some other side hustles that I won't cover are investing, crypto, real estate by either renting out homes or rooms in home or Air BNB. I've seen in our group people doing dog walking too! The sky is really the limit!

I hope this list has give you some amazing ideas! Let me know what other side hustles you have done!