Keep in mind
Check how this care route works
For care in a room, ask an in-person clinic who would assess you. For care online, ask the same question of a licensed telehealth service.
A visit using a screen, a phone call, or an exchange of online messages is called telehealth. The next step is a licence check, whichever route you explore.
Look in the state medical board’s public record for the doctor’s licensing status and any action by that board.
Beyond the name you found
Ask how this route handles your visit
Who reads my health history?
Can I ask the health professional questions?
How would you arrange an exam or tests if needed?
Who handles questions once the visit ends?
According to the medical boards’ group, arranging tests necessary for your assessment is the doctor’s responsibility. Referral to a health professional able to carry out those tests is another option.
These recommendations guide state boards; they do not themselves have the force of law.
Ask the service who would arrange your tests and where you would go.
Keep in mind
Make the first request specific
Who would assess me? Please provide their complete name and the details of their licence.
Use the name in the board’s search. Keep the record with your notes so you can return to it.
Beyond the name you found
Keep the answers together
Make space for the person’s name, the exact medicine name, the pharmacy, the total bill, and the follow-up plan.
When this guide says FDA, it means the US medicine-review agency: Food and Drug Administration.
An online-care patient may be unaware of the compounder that produced their medicine, FDA notes.
A compounder makes a medicine to order. If that is the kind being offered, ask for its name too.
Check the person’s licenceEndnotes
Notes for this chapter
- Medical boards: licences and action against doctors
Read the board record for the named person.
- Medical boards: arranging tests and care elsewhere
Ask who would arrange any tests you need.
- FDA: who made a compounded medicine?
The pharmacy’s identity is a separate check.