What State Medical Licenses Are Telemedicine Companies Looking for When Hiring?
Many physicians in our online communities for doctors are actively seeking telemedicine jobs or side gigs, but are unsure how to get started. For those that don’t want to go through the process of starting or building their own telehealth practice, many seek to work with larger established telemedicine companies. Below, we’ll cover which state licenses seem to be in most demand with telemedicine companies looking to hire physicians for open positions.
Disclosure/Disclaimer: This page contains information about our sponsors and/or affiliate links, which support us monetarily at no cost to you. These should be viewed as introductions rather than formal recommendations, and often provide you with perks, so we hope it's win-win. Our content is for generalized educational purposes. While we try to ensure it is accurate and updated, we cannot guarantee it. We are not formal financial, legal, or tax professionals and do not provide individualized advice specific to your situation. You should consult these as appropriate and/or do your own due diligence before making decisions based on this page. To learn more, visit our disclaimers and disclosures.
Which state licenses are telemedicine companies seeking the most amongst physicians?
You’re probably not shocked to hear that the answer is that it depends on the particular company, the clientele that they serve, and the markets that they’re looking to grow or expand into. That said, there are common trends that we have observed based on companies coming to us to advertise open telemedicine positions via our physician side gig matching services.
If you’re a physician interested in doing telemedicine, make sure that you’re signed up for our telemedicine database to be matched with open opportunities. Note that our databases are only open to verified physicians in our free online physician communities. You can also find out about opportunities through our weekly newsletter, which everyone can sign up for.
Start with the states that have the biggest populations of patients
Not surprisingly, telemedicine companies looking to capture market share often go to market in states that have more patients. As such, having licenses in populous states will generally make you more eligible to meet the needs of a company. Think about (not necessarily in order):
California
Texas
Florida
New York
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Illinois
Ohio
Georgia
Michigan
North Carolina
Arizona
Virginia
Some of these states are more of a hassle to get licensed in than others, some are more expensive, and some take longer than others, so you should also take all of these factors into consideration, particularly if you’re looking to get started quickly.
Related PSG resources:
BlueShift Licensing offers PSG members 10% off of licensing and credentialing related services through our advertising relationship. Jennifer Lincoln and her team are experienced and have helped so many physicians and companies get their licensing completed efficiently. Mention PSG when you contact them to get our discount.
Get a pathway to the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (IMLC)
Importantly, it’s becoming easier and easier to get licensed in many states because of the number of states now participating in the IMLC. Having a license in one of these states provides an expedited pathway to licensing in the remaining states in the Compact. While you still need an individual license in each state, having a license in one state in the Compact makes it much faster and easier to get licenses in the rest of the Compact states. You’ll need a qualifying State of Principal Licensure (SPL), which you can then use to request to get licenses in other states participating in the Compact.
Note that as of September 2026, New York and California do not participate in the Compact, so you’ll have to get those separately, but the Compact does include many of the other states in the list above.
Then, start obtaining licenses from the IMLC states to have more state licenses
We’ll talk about this more below, but many telemedicine companies are requesting that you have a large number of licenses. While they may be interested in your application if you happen to have a license that not many others have, or if you have a license in a state where they have a particularly large need, many of them ideally want as many licenses as possible, with some specifically requesting 20+ state licenses, or even all 50 state licenses. Over half the states in the country are part of the Compact, so you can see why it’s so valuable for those looking to do telemedicine or locums.
What other state licensing strategies should I employ if I’m looking to get hired by a telemedicine company?
If you have a particular company you know you want to work with, check and see where they have contracts
Every company has different contracts where most of their clients are at. If a company only has contracts or payer coverage in a certain state or set of states, your licenses in other states may not matter as much to them. Remember that in telemedicine, it’s important that you have licenses where the patient is physically sitting when they’re being seen, not where you are sitting, so you’ll want to know what patient populations that they serve.
Check how friendly the telemedicine laws are in the state
Some states have more friendly telemedicine laws or reimburse better, so companies are more inclined to do business in those states. There are various ranking systems out there based on Medicaid reimbursement, laws about remote patient monitoring, licensing ease and participation in the compact, whether or not they cover behavioral health, and widespread internet access, as well as communities that have physician shortages and may need telemedicine more to meet the needs of their patients. These lists tend to include states like Utah, South Dakota, Arizona, Idaho, Hawaii, Delaware, New Hampshire, Indiana, Florida, and Colorado. As you can see, some of these states don’t fit the ‘populous’ suggestion above, but could still be very valuable.
Look into both initial costs of licensing as well as maintenance costs for those licenses, as well as whether your malpractice covers those states
The cost of a license isn’t just what you pay initially, but also what you may have to pay to maintain that license. This includes renewal fees as well as any mandatory taxes, CME requirements, modules, or other requirements to maintaining satisfactory standing for medical licensing in that state. You’ll want to consider carefully whether the licenses that are more high maintenance truly make you more marketable.
Also remember the other costs of doing business, such as malpractice. While ideally your company will provide this coverage, if you’re paying for it, make sure that you run these costs as well. Certain states tend to have higher premiums because of the higher litigious nature of practicing in those states, or because of higher malpractice payout limits.
How many state licenses do you need to do telemedicine?
We often get physicians on the group who think they just need to get 50 state licenses because they’ve seen other successful telemedicine doctors with that many licenses. The fact is that you can have a very busy telemedicine practice even if you only have one state license as long as the patient demand is strong in that area. Many physicians with their own telehealth practices only have 1-2 state licenses.
However, the bigger the telemedicine company is, the more likely they’ll want to have you get licensed in more states, because they’d rather hire fewer doctors who can see more patients than have to find physicians in every state. If this is the case, you should ask about whether they’ll help with the licensing costs. Particularly if your specialty is in high demand, they may be willing to help you get those licenses or at least subsidize the cost of them.
Conclusion
Choosing the states to get licensed in is a nuanced discussion, but there are some trends that telemedicine companies hiring physicians tend to follow based on which states have higher populations or more telemedicine friendly laws. If you’re looking to optimize your chances of getting hired by these companies, we hope the above will help!
Related telemedicine resources for physicians
Sign up for our weekly newsletter for alerts about side gig opportunities, upcoming free webinars, new articles and podcast episodes, additional educational resources, and more.
Related PSG resources:
BlueShift Licensing offers PSG members 10% off of licensing and credentialing related services through our advertising relationship. Jennifer Lincoln and her team are experienced and have helped so many physicians and companies get their licensing completed efficiently. Mention PSG when you contact them to get our discount.
Other Related PSG resources: