Many physicians are highly compensated, but if you have some spare time and want to make a bit of extra cash, there’s no reason you shouldn’t look to pick up a side hustle.

Side hustles can be a fun way to fill some time each week, and, depending on what you do, they can be quite lucrative. As a physician, you have more opportunities for side hustles beyond things like driving for Uber, so consider these options if you’re looking for ways to make extra cash.

Medical Surveys

One of the easiest ways to pick up some extra cash is by taking medical surveys. Companies, often those developing new medical devices or treatments, want to know what doctors are looking for-and they're willing to pay for it. By answering surveys, you can help guide their product development to ensure it’s as useful as possible.

Depending on the survey, you can make a few dollars to as much as $50, $100, or more. The White Coat Investor has a recommended list of companies that offer paid medical surveys.

More information here:

Consulting and Chart Review

As I just mentioned, many companies in the medical industry want insight from physicians so they can develop pharmaceuticals or medical devices that are more effective or easier to use. Consulting is a more hands-on approach to helping these companies, but it can come with much higher compensation than answering surveys.

By offering your expertise to a company developing medical devices or to healthcare organizations, you can help them produce better outcomes while getting compensated for your time.

Non-medical companies may also want to hire physicians to consult on certain matters. For example, a law firm or insurance agency may hire doctors to review patient charts for compliance reasons or to identify potential malpractice.

Working as an Expert Witness

If you have an interest in law, you may find serving as an expert witness to be an appealing way to make some extra cash. Expert witnesses are people with specialized skills in a field who are brought in to testify at trials where their knowledge and expertise are relevant to the matter at hand.

Expert witnesses are often compensated by the law firm that brings them to the stand, with rates for medical experts often exceeding $550 per hour for in-court testimony or for reviewing records.

More information here:

Reviewing Insurance Claims

Medical insurance companies must work with board-certified doctors in active practice to conduct independent medical reviews when patients contest the insurer’s decision to deny payment for a certain procedure or type of care.

If you want to pick up extra work and make some money, serving as an independent medical reviewer for an insurer is a good option. Demand is high because every insurer has to be able to support independent reviews.

Telemedicine

These days, many medical appointments don’t require an in-person examination. Just talking to the patient is sufficient to understand the situation, diagnose their symptoms, and come up with a treatment plan.

Telemedicine allows physicians located anywhere in the world to work with patients, regardless of where they live. The field is also growing rapidly, with nearly one-quarter of all US healthcare encounters in 2025 conducted through telemedicine appointments.

With telemedicine, you can keep your practice or day job while getting the opportunity to help treat people far from your home, contributing to the care of people who perhaps can't travel to a doctor or who live far from medical care infrastructure.

Many companies hire physicians to provide telemedicine or, depending on the regulations of your state and where your patients are located, you could potentially provide telemedicine services from your own practice.

Real Estate Investing

Real estate investment isn’t a medical-focused side hustle, but doctors are in a relatively strong position to get started in the industry.

It’s no secret that buying real estate is expensive, but physicians are among the highest-compensated professionals in the United States, earning an average of $386,000 per year (as of 2026). That’s a lot of cash that you can put toward purchasing properties to flip or rent out.

While you can hire property management companies to assist you with your investments, you can get far more out of your real estate investments if you manage them yourself, which takes as much effort as a side hustle would. Finding tenants, fixing up and maintaining properties, and searching for more investment opportunities takes time, but the long-term results can be highly lucrative.

More information here:

The Bottom Line

Whether you’re saving for a specific goal or simply have some free time you want to use productively, plenty of side hustles are available to physicians with a wide range of effort required and compensation provided. Consider the options on this list and don’t be afraid to look for other opportunities where you can leverage your expertise.

The White Coat Investor is filled with posts like this, whether it’s increasing your financial literacy, showing you the best strategies on your path to financial success, or discussing the topic of mental wellness. To discover just how much The White Coat Investor can help you in your financial journey, start here to read some of our most popular posts and to see everything else WCI has to offer. And make sure to sign up for our newsletters to keep up with our newest content.