73 I Can Dental Hygienists Work Remotely? The Honest Answer (And Better Option Nobody's Talking About)

You've been Googling "can dental hygienists work remotely" — and the job boards are lying to you.

Friend, I sat in a parking lot and did that exact same search years ago. What came up was a list of options that promised freedom and delivered something very different.

Today I'm walking you through all four of those "remote" options — what you think they are, what they actually are, and why most of them just hand you a different cage with a different boss and a different ceiling.

None of them gives you what you actually want. Which is to own your time, own your income, and never ask permission again.

Then I'm telling you about the fifth option. The one that doesn't show up on ZipRecruiter. The one nobody's running ads for. The only option on this list that is a trade UP.

Because remote is not the same as free, my friend. And it's time someone told you the truth about what actually is.

Grab your ☕coffee and your courage — and let's dive in! 

Xo, 

💙 Carmen

🌐 The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist™ 

https://theprofitablemyofunctionaltherapist.com

✅ Grab the Trained to Booked Checklist

https://offers.theprofitablemyofunctionaltherapist.com/trainedoptin

📅  Need help? Book a "Get Unstuck" call today 

https://theprofitablemyofunctionaltherapist.com/contact/

Transcript

Meet Sarah And The Burnout

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Sarah is my bored, burned out. I wish I could have quit my dental hygiene job yesterday. Okay, so if Sarah resonates on your heart, my friend, you're gonna want to pull up a chair because this is my zone of genius. If you're a burned out, bored dental hygienist who knows that you can't do this forever, or you've already taken myofunctional therapy training but feel stuck on how to actually start, grow, or simplify your business, welcome, my friend. You're in the right place. I'm Carmen, a dental hygienist who once sat exactly where you are. Overworked, physically tired, mentally done, knowing that there had to be more, and wanting the fastest, simplest, most organized path forward with someone holding my hand along the way. This podcast is for women who don't want more information. They want transformation. They want clarity, consistent clients, predictable income without building a business that takes over their life. They also want support while they do it. So if you're ready to stop spinning, start moving, and finally make sense of what comes next, grab your coffee and your courage, my friend. Let's build a business that works for your life, not one that runs it, so that you can build a life that you're genuinely bonkers about, because that's my superpower. All right, friend, welcome back. Uh hopefully you've been out building a life that you are bonkers about, which is exactly why you should be here, right? Today we are going to talk directly to the Sarah in my world. Okay. Now I don't mean literally Sarah. Sarah is my bored, burned out. I wish I could have quit my dental hygiene job yesterday. Okay, so if Sarah resonates on your heart, my friend, you're gonna want to pull up a chair because this is my zone of genius. So let's get to it. So, first, confession time. Years ago, years ago, since I've been doing this about a decade, it was many years ago, before I really knew a lot about myofunctional therapy, especially the opportunities. I sat in my car one day after a 10-hour shift, had to eat lunch in my car at 4 p.m. because we were so behind all day. And I Googled, can dental hygienists work from home? Okay, yeah, you might have done that to yourself. Um, here's the thing: a whole lot of options came up, and also a whole lot of job boards lied to me. Insurance claim review, uh, teledentistry audits. I could do be an on uh online instructor, I could be a sales rep. I could review dental records, okay? Everything that I read, it promised

Googling Remote Jobs After A Shift

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freedom and flexibility. And almost none of it was what it sounded like. So today we're gonna talk through those options. Um, I've done some research. I'm gonna tell you kind of what's real, what's not, what's actually a unicorn job that barely exists, right? Um, and then we're gonna talk naturally about the fifth option, my friend, the one that uh that Google might not serve up to, okay. Um this one might be the door that you have been looking for. So um what I want to start with is I want you to know when you're Googling remote, okay? Uh remote dental hygiene jobs, remote, my friend, is not the same as being free. Okay, burn that into your brain. I want you to sit with it. We're gonna come back to it. So here is a little bit of my story. And we may or may not have gotten to all of the details, but I'm sure if you've been with me for any amount of time, you have some of this down. So years ago, um, before I had really gotten into Mayo, I was Googling. Okay. I learned about Mayo. Let me back up. I learned about Mayo first thing, like right out of hygiene school. Probably didn't even have my license then. And I think it was like maybe under one roof RDH or something like that. So I had learned about Maya, but I knew I just had this little teeny tiny bit of knowledge. Okay. Um, so I was always Googling, okay, I would have a bazillion tabs open on my laptop so that I could see what were other things that dental hygienists could do. When it got to the point where I was having heart palpitations on the way to work, my boss had, you know, over the course of 12 months, had had moved me from dream superstar, doing everything all the time for everybody type of hygienist into being the cancer of the office. And she had nothing nice to say about me. Um, so I went from that, I experienced a change in the dental production goals. So I missed a bonus by $17. Yes, $17. Story for another day. Um, I got nothing. Okay. So I was done. I started looking at all of these uh dental hygiene job boards. I started applying. I did everything. I mean, I was desperate. Okay. I was ready to do something different. Okay, now the thing is, is like one of the jobs that I applied to, the recruiter came back to me, and it was supposed to be a remote teledentistry hygienist type of position. The root recruiter came back to me and said, you need to work four days a week in a nursing home with a portable cart, uh, doing assessments, connected to a dentist somewhere in their main office, and get paid less and use my own gas. Doesn't sound like remote to me, right? But it was remote, right? So that was the day that I realized that the job boards were also not necessarily the best place for me to find um the way to build a life that I'm bonkers about. So um, if you're that person who's researching, let's go through some of those. And then I want to talk to you about the best option, okay? You probably know what it is. But if you are Sarah, if you're that bored, burned out dental hygienist, my friend, you need to be paying attention. Pull your chair up, turn the volume up, okay? So, first let's talk about five, five options for five remote options, okay. In my research, these were remote options for dental hygienists. Okay. So let's go through these together. So, option number one, teledentistry hygienist. This, this, you know, you're thinking that you get to sit home in your pajamas, doing video calls with patients all day, coaching them through the importance of flossing, right? Absolutely not what it is. Because you and I both know that there's rules about supervision and working under a dentist or all of that stuff, okay? But the the thing is, you in your skills, there's probably not a lot that you can do that is

Four Remote Options That Disappoint

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definitely teledentistry. Okay. So that truth, the truth bomb there is that really does not exist. It's mostly a unicorn, okay? The job boards make it sound like one thing. It's definitely not. Okay, my friend, you are not going to probe teeth via teledentistry, okay? All right, number two, and this is one thing that I found when I was searching is insurance claims review. So you assume that it is going to be sitting at home, going through these reviews at your own pace, um, finally getting to do something using your brain and not your hands, right? Wrong. What this job actually is, is a W-2 desk job at an insurance company, often requiring a bachelor's degree. It pays meaningfully less than dental hygiene. You have a boss, you have a manager, you have quotas, your clinical brain goes unused for the most part. It's the same 40-hour work week. It's just at a desk instead of an operatory chair, okay? Who it's good for. A hygienist whose body is broken down, okay, and somebody who just needs to stop scaling teeth, and who is willing to take a pay cut to do it. Not this girl. All right, option number three, online dental hygiene instructor. So, what you assume assume that it is, is that you're going to teach dental hygiene students from your couch, set your own schedule, make great money, sharing what you know and love and you're passionate about, right? Here's what it actually is. So usually it requires a bachelor's or a master's. Adjunct pay is typically $2,500 to $4,500 per course. There's limited spots, it's highly competitive. You have to teach on the student schedule, okay, not yours. Most programs also require some sort of on-campus clinical hours. It just depends. So, who is it good for? A dental hygienist who has advanced uh education, so has an advanced degree, or maybe even just has a bachelor's degree, who genuinely loves teaching and very often has some other source of income. Okay. Also wasn't gonna be an option for me. Option number four, dental product sales rep. Exactly what you think it is. Travel a little. No, let me back up. Here's what you think it is that you're gonna travel a little, sell practice, uh, sell to dental practices, no more chairside, finally a real fun professional job. That's what you think it's gonna be. That's what I thought it was gonna be. What it actually is quotas, quotas, quotas, quotas, right? Heavy regional travel, base plus commission, meaning your income is going to be variable and often capped by territory. Okay, you're gonna have a sales manager, you're gonna have sales metrics, you're a salesperson now, not a clinician. Okay. No, thank you to that. If there was one thing I wasn't, that was a salesperson. So that's why I went to dental hygiene school, right? So I wasn't going to be a good salesperson. In this pos in this situation, remote usually means that you don't have an office to report to, but you're not free. You are not free, okay? Who it's good for. Um, the dental hygienist who truly loves sales and does not mind trading your operatory for a car and a quota. Again, not for this girl. Let me say something so far, you guys. These four examples I have given you. I want this to land with you. Remote is not the same as free. It totally is not. Okay. Every single one of those four options gives you a different cage. That's it. It just gives you a different cage, a different boss, a different ceiling. None of them gives you anything that you actually want. Which from what I have learned about you guys, you want to own your time, you want to own your income, you want to own your life, you want to work less, earn more, be in total control of your calendar, um, set your own schedule, I guess, for that, not have to put in time requests for vacation or time off or the holidays, that kind of stuff. Um, many of you guys want to be able to work from anywhere. Yes, but I think more importantly, you guys want your life. That life uh of that your bonkers about that I talk about, you know, it used to be just financial for me. Now it's the freedom part of it that I don't have to report to a boss. I don't have to set an alarm. I don't have to get out of my sneakers and yoga pants or running shorts, you know. But more important for most of you guys, and I I feel this, I know you feel this because I get your emails and your DMs. You want to be a better you, whether that's a less stressed, more present mama, you want to be a more exceptional partner, wife, sister, daughter, employee. Like you want to quit being so stressed. You want to quit burning the candle at both ends. I know what you want. And and and freedom, the freedom, we all define it differently, but it is being free is not the same as being remote. Okay, let me tell you about the fifth option. What do you think it is? Right? Build your own remote myofunctional therapy practice. So, what is it? You train in myofunctional therapy, you see clients via Zoom or whatever you platform you want. You set your own prices, you set your own hours, you set your own ceiling. So many of you guys are out there Googling how much can a myofunctional therapist make? There is no mayor of MyoTown. There is no ceiling. I'm sure there's people out there who never thought that they could earn what they're earning. I never thought I could earn six figures my first year and multiple six figures every year after that to come into a multi-million dollar business. Never did I think that was a possibility. And look at here, I'm sharing that with you. So that's what it is. Why is it it's I think it's starting to be out there a little bit more, but you guys, people like ZipRecruiter, they're not advertising for entrepreneurship. They're not advertising for you. The algorithm is not your friend here when you're doing your search. Although I do know that myofunctional therapy is starting to come up. This is a great option for you. And if you're still with me, I know that you're leaning in. I know you're interested. I know you're excited about it. So, this is where you use, you leverage your license to change your life. Okay. Real income potential. Um, nobody's capping what you're getting paid. Okay. Real freedom. Real freedom. I can work anywhere. I set my hours, I can make any amount of money that I want. Um, what else? I just the freedom. I wouldn't trade it for anything. So who is it good for? It is done. It is good for the hygienist who's done asking for permission, who's tired of income ceilings, who's tired of being unappreciated, who's tired of hurting, whose body wants something else. Okay. They don't want to start over. There, I can't really think of a great hygienist who it's not a great option for. Okay. I suppose maybe the person who doesn't actually just want to get out of being uncomfortable. Like I have worked with some hygienists, and I'm pretty sure they're gonna retire being miserable, crusty old hygienists because they they're too lazy to go do anything else, really. All right, so let's do a little bit of math. Um, so insurance claims representative remote job, okay? Typically averages 25 to 32 an hour. Well, first of all, as a hygienist, I would be like, yeah, no, thank you. Okay. It's a W-2 job, it's making way less than a hygienist. Your income has capped. There's no room to grow without a promotion that somebody else has to give to you. Okay. So in that situation or in any situation with a job, if if the toes you're gonna step on are

Remote Is Not The Same As Free

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going to are uh attached to a butt you have to kiss, no thank you. Like I want to be free. Um, so as far as myofunctional therapy, now I don't know how everybody sets their hours. However, I just did an episode talking about a business coaching client of mine who just had a $12,000 a month. You guys, those are normal. My business needs to earn $11,000 to $15,000 a month just to keep beanie weenies on the table. Okay. But earning six figures, multiple six figures, whatever you get to set those prices, you get to set how many clients that is, how many days a week you see clients. Um, I have many months that are 12,000 and over. Okay. From my home in my sneakers, my dog's laying right here on the floor. I love it. It is freedom. Now, I'm not promising you pie in the sky, and I just want to say that here, just to cover my butt, and also not let you think that this is a build it and and people will come. You have to you have to build your business correctly. Okay. And many of you uh out there who are trained in listening to this, that's where you're struggling. That's a conversation for a whole nother day. But what I want to say about the math here is it it maths, okay? And regardless of what kind of investment you make, you're getting skills that you can use for the rest of your life. All right. So if this is, if this is hitting you like right here, like in the gut, and you know I'm talking to you, what's your first step? Okay. You can't do this until you are trained. So you have to get that clinical foundation. So the best place for you to start, there's other options out there. I'm gonna tell you about my option, uh, learn myfunctional therapy in 60 days or less. That's the clinical foundation. It gets you trained, it gets you credentialed, it gets you ready to start. Okay. I'm not helping you build a hobby. I'm helping you build something that is for the rest of your life. And this entry point is very important because you've got to get the training so that you have that to be able to build the business. Now, my own situation when I took my myofunctional therapy training, I was earning revenue 12 weeks after my course.

The Fifth Option: Myo Practice Online

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Like I took my course. So it's doable, but you have to do the work. So that's why I caution you. So here's what I want you to think about. If what would what would it feel like? Think about a day in the future, maybe 61 days in the future. Or if you want to give yourself a little bit of extra time, 90 days. Okay. The reason it's 60 days is because I don't want your 60 days to be six months or a year long. For me to help you build that online business, we got to get that first client. We got to build your prototype. So that's why that the LMT 60 is short. Okay. So think about 60, 61 days, 70 days from now in the future. You wake up on a Tuesday, you don't put on your scrubs, you don't drive 35 minutes to work to a boss who doesn't appreciate you, right? You grab a cup of coffee, you go into your office or log into Zoom from your computer. Your first client of the morning is a mom of a seven-year-old kiddo who is not sleeping well and is having behavior issues at school. And guess what? You know exactly how to help her. Okay. That's the most rewarding work right there. So it's not a fantasy, it is what can happen for a myofunctional therapist. And that might be you. Okay, so that's where your starting point is. If you need to learn, that's your starting point. Learning my learn myofunctional therapy in 60 days or less. So that's the clinical foundation that's going to help you leverage your dental hygiene license into being able to build an online business. Um, so wherever you're watching this, I will have a link for you. You can, there's a discount code, you can get $100 off your enrollment. Now, if your brain just whispered to you that I don't even know if I can actually do this or pull this off, this, my friend, that's fear. Okay. And it is exactly what kept me in dental hygiene for years too long. Years and years and years. Okay. Don't listen to it. Do not listen to it. Your brain is there to keep you safe. And because you're already doing something that you know, it's familiar. It's like, no, no, no, you just go over there. You just be miserable and suffer for the rest of your life. If you know, you know, right? My biggest regret in this industry is that I didn't do it sooner because I was afraid of cat. And because I let other people's opinions tell me what I could and couldn't do. Namely, my husband, namely my dad. Okay. Um, so that's your first step is the clinical training. If you are already trained, then that's A different conversation, you can grab the the from trained to booked checklist. That's going to tell you kind of every step that it's going to take to build your business. Because LMT60 isn't where I leave you, my friend. You start there, it sets you up to come into my business training, which is the profitable myofunctional therapist. If you want to hear about the success of that program, I want you to go listen to episode 72. I just talked about uh one of my students. Um, but that's what how it is set up, okay? Clinical only, because your brain can only handle so much. I don't want you drinking from a fire hose. You're gonna start with your clinical, you're gonna follow me into the profitable myofunctional therapist, and I'm gonna take you step by step all the business things, all the CEO skills that you need. Does your website have SEO on it? Okay. Do you know how to train and adequately use AI to build your business? What are your financial skills? Um, marketing, all of those uh CEO skills that you're not getting in it in any other training, okay? A training that's teaching you about tongue ties is also not going to be telling you how to set up your Google Analytics and how to evaluate that data. But your girl here does because she's already done it, and that's what you'll do between the two different programs. So don't get it convoluted, clinical first. That's just where you start, okay? But if you're already trained, you can grab that checklist. Um, if you are just wondering what this is gonna look like for you and starting your business, you can also grab that checklist and it's gonna show you what's gonna come after your clinical training so that you can kind of see the whole road, uh the whole roadmap, not just a first step, okay? Friend, at the top of this episode, I told you about the fifth option, right? You knew it was gonna be myelfunctional therapy, right? Duh, you're listening to a podcast called The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist. Um, remote is not the same as free. Remember that. Those job listings, those other opportunities,

First Steps, Training, And Homework

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like I said, they are just a different cage with a different boss. The only option that gives your body a break and gives you the freedom and the ability to work less, earn more, be in total control of your calendar, have the geographic freedom to work from anywhere, right? And more so to build a life you are bonkers about. With me, our focus is building a life first business. I want to help you build your business around your life. So you can be that incredible mom, you can be that Psalms 31 woman, you can be that um exceptional partner to your spouse, less stress, take care of yourself, all of those things. Um, that is the ultimate freedom. Okay. Um, nobody, nobody is gonna sell you harder on becoming your own boss than I am because it has absolutely changed the course of my life, the revenue in my bank account, the retirement that I have built, but it's more so just the the time freedom and being being able to be here from home with my pups. Okay. So here's your homework. Okay. Stop thinking about all of that other stuff. Where you're watching this or listening to it, click the link, open the tab, check out LMT60, read what you're gonna do in the program. Know that I have you covered on the other side of that program with business, and that's it, my friend. That is it. I want you to go take those steps so that you can get started on this whole building a life your bonkers are bonkers about. Um, I'm going to be back soon. We're going to talk more about starting, growing, and simplifying your myofunctional therapy business. And until I'm back, my friend, I want you to go do your homework. I'll see you soon. I hope you loved today's episode, friend. I pray that it lifted you up, motivated you, and taught you something. If so, would you stop right now and go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review? And lastly, make sure you've joined the profitable myofunctional therapist Facebook community. Links to all the goodies can be found wherever you're listening to this podcast. That's it for now. Cheering you on, my friend, and we'll chat soon.