Term / Telehealth

Telehealth: what a care visit involves.

Telehealth is care through a screen or phone, with a clinician, meaning a health professional who checks your health.

Before the visit, get your questions ready

Use these questions for an in-person clinic or an online care service.

Set out what you want help with: your weight, diabetes or sleep.
Bring a list of your medicines and past health problems.
Ask who reads your answers and how to reach that person.
Ask who will check on you after treatment starts and what happens if a problem arises.

As of September 26, 2026, US health guidance says a doctor must hold a licence or another form of legal permission from the patient’s state.

That means your location during the visit.

Each state has a medical board. Its public records show doctors’ licences and any steps the board has taken when a doctor broke its rules.

Find your state’s board, search the doctor’s full name and read the record.

For a nurse or physician assistant, ask which state board holds their licence.

Good care is not proven by a doctor’s record with no public action from the board.

The national group for state medical boards says a form with fixed questions alone is not enough to check a patient’s health.

Its policy allows online interviews that gather enough health history and let the health professional ask more questions.

As of September 26, 2026, states have different rules about when an online visit lets a doctor take you on as a patient and write a prescription.

Tell the service which state you will be in for the visit. Ask whether that visit meets the state’s rules.

Under the board group’s policy, needed tests must be arranged, or the patient must be sent to a person able to carry them out.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US agency that checks medicines, links to each state’s list of licensed pharmacies.

If an online pharmacy is absent from your state’s official list of licensed pharmacies, the FDA advises against using it.

Use the source link below, choose your state and search for the pharmacy’s full name.

Finding a pharmacy on that list does not prove that it supplies every medicine properly.