Online medical courses are a great way for you to share your knowledge in the most time-efficient way possible. It is lucrative and it’ll help you grow as an educator and learner.
I wrote about online courses back in MOOC in 2015 and again in 2018. Online courses have become a popular form of entertainment media.
There are those who watch soap operas on Netflix and those who consume educational content on Youtube. The former often falls into the category of those who are advertising targets for information. The latter seek out information for themselves.
I am currently enrolled in a $5,000 course in functional nutrition. I am grateful that people like this are willing to share their pearls with me.
Online Medical Courses
There are 2 forms of online courses I am interested in creating:
- targeting a patient audience
- targeting healthcare professionals (HCP)
Fairly self-explanatory, but let’s dive in a little deeper.
1. The Patient Audience
This isn’t just the patient who is looking to improve their blood pressure or weight. It’s also the caregiver of elderly parents who is looking for health related or healthcare related information.
It’s the parent looking to handle bullying in school or potty training or teenage acne.
This audience might be looking for clinical information or they are looking for healthcare related information such as how to navigate cost and insurance and prior authorization.
2. The HCP Audience
The healthcare professional audience is the MD/DO/PA/NP, sure. But it also includes:
- health coaches
- physical therapists
- dentist
- dieticians
- aestheticians
- chefs
- personal trainers
- teachers
- RN/LVN/MA
All of these individuals make up the team members of healthcare. They may want to learn more for their own education or they feel overwhelmed and need extra clinical insight.
A Physician Audience
I know a lot about gynecology and dermatology as a family medicine physician. But I also know that there is a lot I don’t know about. I would love a course on female fertility and aesthetic options for common skin disorders.
I know very little about rheumatology, ENT, gastroenterology, oncology, and psychiatry. So, yes, pretty much ignorant to most other specialties.
But I don’t want a regurgitation of Uptodate – already have a $1,000 subscription there. I am looking for clinical pearls in these specialties.
- What are the pearls for IBS management?
- Which serology is the highest yield for liquid cancers in the elderlly?
- Are there tricks to choosing the best SSRI/SNRIs?
- How can my patients prevent colon polyps?
Online Course or Online School
Should you have an online course or start an online school?
You can create a simple course where you are screen recording and talking over it. The one linked here is the one I made in just an hour on my Chromebook.
An online course is simple, something your audience will digest in one session. It’s best for an introduction to a topic.
An online school isn’t any harder to create but it’s ideal for an audience who wants to learn something over several sessions.
The online school is a series of videos, audio recording, some written content, and an online chat session with you or a medoerator.
Starting with a course will set you up for a school, if that’s what you prefer to have in the future. “The Acne School for MDs” or the “DO School for MDs”.
Paying for the Online Medical Courses
How can your customers pay you?
Most physicians who take my online courses pay in monthly installments. This is a great way to lower the sticker shock.
A $1,500 course becomes a few payments of $125. A $500 course becomes a few payments of $50.
You can sell people packages once you create several courses. And if you’re a course creating beast you can sell them a subscription to log in whenever they want to learn.
Most online course hosting platforms have payment gateways which allow your customers to pay you. You can charge any currency, bitcoin, and trade them for chicken and goats, if you like.
Charging for Your Online Course
How much can you charge for your online medical courses?
If your audience are physicians you shouldn’t charge any less than $500 and easily upwards of $5,000.
You can always break a larger course into $50-100 increments. But don’t shy away from charging a big sticker price for your content.
Time Investment
How much time do you need to invest into your online courses?
It takes me a handful of hours to think and write out the outline for my course. I usually then create it in about an hour.
I need another hour to clean it up – upload it and write some information about it online.
The very first time you create a course you also need to figure out how to work within that environment. Example hosting platforms include Kajabi, Teachable, Gumroad, and many others.