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Care explained, one question at a time.

Use this guide to explore care choices; it is not a clinic.

Online assessment

What a real online assessment involves

An online visit begins with information about you. Make the conversation about the problem, your history and the questions still open.

  1. Prepare a short account of the problem.

    Write down what brought you to care, when it began and what makes daily life hard. List medicines, supplements, allergies and past treatment.

    Clinician means the health professional doing the assessment, such as a doctor.

    Have relevant records ready. Note what you most want the clinician to answer.

  2. Check that the exchange can go both ways.

    The medical boards’ national guidance rejects prescribing based solely on a fixed online form that cannot gather enough information. Medical-board guidance

    The guidance permits a form within the assessment, with room to gather more history and ask follow-up questions.

    Ask how you can reply or raise a question of your own.

  3. Ask how care continues beyond the screen.

    If the assessment requires tests or an examination in person, the same guidance calls for testing or a referral. Evaluation guidance

    Ask where that care would happen and who follows the result.

  4. Expect a reasoned recommendation.

    The May 2026 position of the Federation of State Medical Boards rejects a patient’s product-menu selection as a proper assessment on its own. Medical-board prescribing guidance

    This advises medical boards; it is not one law governing the entire country.

    Ask the clinician to explain the decision in plain words, including the limits of the evidence.