6 MORE Amazing Non-Clinical Jobs for Occupational Therapists

In our first non-clinical jobs for occupational therapists article, Alternative Career Paths for Occupational Therapists, we highlighted 15 amazing alternative career paths for OTs, and we are excited in this article to share even more non-clinical career routes for OTs and COTAs. These positions also have an increased emphasis on remote opportunities!

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Utilization Review, Pre-Service, and Care Coordinator

In our previous article, we talked about insurance authorization positions but there really are quite a few unique positions within this “insurance” umbrella.

Specifically there are:

• Utilization Review
• Pre Service Coordinator
• Skilled Inpatient Care Coordinator
• Cross Market Care Coordinator
• Transitional Care Coordinator
• Home Health Care Coordinator

What do these roles do?

Utilization Review: This person is responsible for performing medical chart reviews and audits. You are reviewing the documentation making sure it meets medical necessity and evidenced based criteria to either approve or deny reimbursement.

Pre Service Coordinator: This person is responsible for the start of a patient’s medical recovery. You review pre-authorizations for rehabilitation services and determine if that patient meets the medical necessity for that level of care – like inpatient rehabilitation, and you help coordinate this transition.

Skilled Inpatient Care Coordinator: This person helps with the skilled inpatient patient recovery journey. You help with functional assessments that help coordinate a patient’s discharge planning and also help to share information from the medical staff to the patient, family and caregiver.

Cross Market Care Coordinator: This person works as both a Skilled Inpatient Care and a Transitional Care Coordinator role. You help patients optimize their recovery journey by being the “communication link” between the patient and the medical team in both acute care and post acute care settings.

Transitional Care Coordinator: This person also is integral to helping a patient with their journey to recovery and is a key communication link between the patient and the medical team. You work primarily within the post acute settings and help with evaluating a patient for needs post discharge to help with their recovery. You basically help ensure that patients get prompt healthcare services as they go through the different settings.

Home Health Care Coordinator: This role is the same as skilled inpatient care coordinator but with home health services.

What are some typical duties of these roles?

There are a variety of tasks you may perform, but here are some of the most common ones:

• Reviewing charts for medical necessity
• Coordinate with the team your decision process
• Communication with family/caregiver if you are a SICC or PSC to aid in discharge and transfers
• Communicate with providers to gather further information if needed

What are the requirements for these positions?

For Utilization Reviewer, you need to be a PT, PTA, OT, COTA, or SLP.

For Pre-Service Coordinator, you need to be a physical or occupational therapist.

For SICC and the other care coordinator roles, you need to be a PT, OT, or SLP.

For all of these roles, companies also often request or recommend:

• Case management experience
• 3-5 years of clinical experience required
• Experience in an acute care, rehab or skilled nursing facility environment preferred; managed care experience is a plus
• Experience performing clinical audits to improve quality standards or performance preferred
• Strong critical thinking skills and the ability to review patients’ clinical information holistically
• Exceptional verbal and written interpersonal and communication skills
• Experience in oversight and supervision of assistants (CNAs, PTAs, OTAs)
• ICD-10 and InterQual experience a plus
• CMS knowledge preferred
• Excellent documentation skills required
• Self-starter with the ability to prioritize daily work load

*This is according to the naviHealth job postings*

How do I know if I would like these positions?

All of these roles have great benefits, have no lifting or physical duties involved, and have upward mobility!

Utilization Review and Pre-Service roles are very similar – they are fully remote, and as a result they have the least patient and interpersonal interaction. Pre Service Coordinators deal with pre-authorization while Utilization Reviewers deal more with the authorization process at the end of therapy. Utilization Reviewers really have no interaction with patients and just an occasional interaction with the medical team, when they need to call the team for help on complicated care or when they need to contact a provider for more information.

The Care Coordinator positions are hybrid remote, meaning they are half remote and half in the facility. As a result of the hybrid remote position, this is a much more interactive position. You’ll be interacting with more medical staff for discharge planning and with patients, families and caregivers to help them navigate their recovery process. So this is a great role for someone who wants patient interaction and satisfaction of helping patients, but without the lifting and physical roles of the clinical environment.

What are some companies that hire for these reviewer positions?

Here is just a short list, there are many more companies that hire therapists and assistants:

• naviHealth
• Anthem
• United Healthcare

If you would like more information on an amazing program that provides step by step guidance, free resume reviews, and 2 hours of CEU credits, you can check out the Utilization Review Course here, and either click that link or use “myotspot” as the coupon code to save 10%.

Recruiter

I was a traveling therapist for several years earlier in my career, and I worked very closely with several recruiters during this time. In addition, I loved traveling so much that I became an advocate and worked closely with travel companies and recruiters to highlight the best companies and recruiters.

I worked so closely with these companies, that many times I was offered a recruiting job!

What does a recruiter do?

Recruiters help pair people to open positions. You can be a recruiter anywhere in the world, for any company, and help recruit any type of person. It really just depends on the company you work for.

You can be a recruiter and help with:

• Finding full time jobs
• Finding contract jobs
• Finding travel jobs

You can work with therapists and therapy assistants or you could work with physicians, nurses, engineers, programmers, really anyone! You’ll find that most career routes have recruiters helping connect people to open positions.

What are some companies that hire therapists for recruiters?

Typically you can find a lot of therapy recruiting positions within travel therapy companies. There are tons of travel therapy companies, so while I’ll name some, there are many more and I strongly suggest you do your own research as well. In addition, there are many companies that need recruiters that are not within travel companies, so make sure to look at travel therapy companies but also at other companies.

• Luna
• HelloNote
• WebPT
• Core Medical
• MAS Medical Staffing
• CompHealth
• Med Travelers
• ClubStaffing

What requirements do I need for a recruiter position?

The great thing is as a therapy practitioner, you already qualify! I know many recruiters with no medical background nor special experience. As a therapist or assistant, you are truly uniquely qualified.

If you do see qualifications that you feel you do not meet, we strongly encourage you to still apply! As you can likely beat out the competition with your clinical experience, just highlight how you can really relate to all of the potential therapy travelers looking for work.

How do I know if I would like a recruiting position?

Here is a little idea of the daily tasks you will be doing as a recruiter. You may be:

• Posting and commenting on social media 
• Networking with therapists and doing affiliate launches
• Calling therapists and assistants looking for work
• Following up with your current travelers
• Attending staff meetings

What are some pros?

This job may be remote, it’s flexible in terms of hours and tasks, there are no physical tasks, and no extra education needed! Although this is a sales position, you are helping people find jobs – which I find very rewarding.

What are some cons?

This is not a 9-5 job; it requires you to be a little more flexible. Maybe working at night or on weekends to answer questions or promote positions on social media. This also is not a traditionally salaried position, it is usually a combination of salary and commission. This could be good, if you are very hardworking then you could make six figures, but if you are not a self starter, then this position may not be the best fit for you.

Industrial or Office Ergonomics

In our previous article, we highlighted workstation or office ergonomics. But similar to therapy settings, where we have a variety of settings for different needs, there are two ergonomic settings: office and industrial.

Office ergonomics is more focused on providing ergonomics and injury prevention within companies that are more office based, like Google, Intel, or Warby Parker.

Industrial ergonomics is more focused on providing ergonomics and injury prevention within the more industrial environment like car plants, paper plants, oil plants, and more manufacturing types of companies.

What companies hire therapists and assistants for ergonomics?

These are just a few companies that hire therapists and assistants for ergonomics:

• Briotix
• Amazon
• ATI Physical Therapy

There are many more companies than these, so I strongly encourage you to look for these roles near you. Make sure to look up ergonomics, ergonomic specialist, injury prevention as a couple different titles that these job postings often use.

What are the requirements for an ergonomics position?

Luckily, you do not need any more education other than an ergonomic certification. While you can get hired without additional certifications, they tend to help you stand out from other candidates and they are sometimes recommended/required within the job postings.

This is also a job that assistants can apply to! Please still apply even if it says bachelors and you do not have a bachelors, I would say to apply as you can additional education in occupational therapy which will offset this.

How would I know if I would like a position in ergonomics?

We think ergonomics is a really great career route for therapists and assistants who still really want to be in therapy, but are just tired of all the insurance and interpersonal drama.

With ergonomics you rarely have to deal with insurance, there is minimal lifting and physical labor, yet you still get to provide care and help heal people. I liken this to working as a health coach – you get to help people without all the insurance headaches.

Looking to get started in career in ergonomics? Check out this amazing Ergonomic Certification that includes CEUs and a whole business course, and use promo code “myotspot” to save 10%.

Kids Gym Owner

If you’re an occupational therapist or a COTA, owning and operating a kids gym can be a perfect fit and is often forgotten compared to starting a mobile practice.

As a kids gym owner, you can help children of all ages and abilities and really create an amazing gym where the sky’s the limit. You can:

• Create sensory classes
• Host special education seminar
• Promote a gym that’s inclusive for everyone
• Add occupational therapy or other therapy services or wellness services

The neat thing about starting your own kids gym is that you create something that is your own. In addition, this is a business option for occupational therapist assistants in which you do not need to have an OT oversight (unless you provide OT therapy services).

Looking to get started in a career in owning a kids gym? Check out this amazing step by step program, use promo code “myotspot” to save 10% or click here.

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We hope this hope this article and our previous alternative careers for OTs article (linked at the top) has helped give you LOTS of inspiration to consider diving into one of these non-clinical OT jobs. If you’ve taken the leap, please let us know about it in the comments below!