Live video
You and the doctor talk at the same time. Ask whether the doctor can check your health properly by video or needs to see you in person.
Question cards
Get answers before you choose a route.
There is no need to sound medical. Bring your goal in your own words, and ask for an answer you can explain back.
Compare a live visit with a later reply
A telehealth visit happens remotely: you might speak on a screen, talk by phone, or exchange messages online.
Advice checked September 26, 2026 allowed a first visit by live video or by answers read later, if the doctor can provide proper care that way.
The Federation of State Medical Boards supplied the advice discussed here; this organisation groups together the bodies that license doctors.
This was advice for state medical boards, rather than a law for the whole country, as of September 26, 2026.
Each state had its own rules for online prescribing at that date.
Check whether your location’s state rules permit the planned visit. Have the doctor explain the health assessment, how further questions will be raised, and how any needed exam will be arranged.
A form and later reply
You send answers for review later. Find out how both you and the doctor can send follow-up questions.
Phone only
The boards’ advice checked September 26, 2026 allowed phone-only care when a patient could not or did not want to use video.
It also allowed calls when a phone call was enough for that type of care.
Ask the doctor what can be checked by phone and what needs video or an exam. Ask which state rule allows your visit.
Check the licence in a real record
For a remote visit, the doctor generally needs a licence or other legal permission where the patient is, under rules checked September 26, 2026.
You can read a doctor’s licence record at the state medical board, along with public records of action it has taken for rule violations.
Get the complete name
Request the doctor’s complete name, along with the state licence or other permission used to provide your visit.
Find the right state board
Start with your location for the appointment. In the medical-board directory, find that state’s board responsible for the doctor’s licence.
Read the public record
Look up the name, check the licence status, and read any public record of discipline. Ask the service about a mismatch before proceeding.
Finding no public disciplinary action in a doctor’s record does not establish the quality of care.
Questions to take into the conversation
What are we treating?
Ask for the health problem the plan addresses. Ask how you would judge a useful result and what other choices you have.
Why this exact product?
Get the ingredient name and the medicine’s form, then check its approval status or whether a pharmacy makes it to order. Ask who actually prepares it.
Will I need tests?
Ask what a test would answer and how its result could change the plan. Ask where an exam would happen if it is needed.
What happens after the visit?
Ask who handles later questions, how to reach that person, and what follow-up costs. Find out what follows a decision to prescribe nothing.
Evidence cardChoosing from a menu is not a health checkRead the source
Choosing from a menu is not a health check
In advice checked September 26, 2026, the medical-board group said doctors must not prescribe just because a patient picks a treatment from a menu.
Its advice held remote care to the standards required when a patient attends in person.
A fixed online form alone was not enough under that advice.
The guidance said patients also needed a channel for sending more questions to the doctor.
As of September 26, 2026, the rules doctors had to follow were still set by each state.
Ask how the doctor checks your answers before deciding on a medicine.
Read the medical boards’ prescribing guidance