Compare a screen visit with a room visit
Licensed telehealth
A telehealth visit provides care using a video link, a call by phone, or messages exchanged online.
Ask how the health professional assessing you can come back with questions and how you can ask your own.
An in-person clinic
Ask what the visit would cover, what records to bring, and how follow-up questions would be handled.
U.S. guidance from September 2026 ties permission for a remote doctor visit to the patient’s location. The doctor needs a licence or state permission there.
The rules for prescribing online differ by state, based on information checked in September 2026.
Find the health professional licence record
State medical boards keep public doctor licence records. They also list penalties or restrictions the board has imposed on a doctor.
No penalty or restriction in the public record does not prove that a doctor gives good care.
Find your state medical boardLook up the pharmacy as a separate step
To reach the pharmacy licence search for your state, follow the links on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) page.
A pharmacy licence record confirms the licence exists. It does not prove the pharmacy is supplying the right medicine in the right way.
Get the pharmacy name in writing, then compare it with the name in the board record.
Open the state pharmacy licence searchesKeep these notes open while you work, or copy them before leaving the page. Nothing here sends your answers to a care service.
Read what the checks can establish
Open the notes behind this answer
Medical-board guidance explains how care ought to work. Prescribing rules for a doctor come from the state in which they would prescribe.