Who handles the advertised care?
Would a room or a screen fit this visit?
Compare the arrangements for an assessment and follow-up. Care delivered remotely, including online visits, is called telehealth.
What stays the same?
As of September 2026, Florida law requires telehealth care to meet the professional standard applied to in-person care.
Ask what the person assessing you needs to understand your health problem. Make time for your own questions.
What can I compare?
Compare time for questions, follow-up, and any local tests. Ask how each visit would handle your main concern.
Compare the visit arrangements
Showing both care settings.
In a room
Ask how long the assessment is, what to bring, and who will carry it out.
Consider the journey as well as the visit. Ask where any tests and follow-up visits would happen.
Ask how to reach the person managing your care between visits.
Online
Ask whether the visit uses video, a phone call, or information reviewed later. Check how you can ask questions.
As of September 2026, Florida allows routine online care from health professionals licensed in Florida. A person licensed in another state can qualify by registering with Florida to provide remote care here.
Ask who arranges a local examination if one is needed, and how follow-up works.
What if the online assessment leaves a gap?
Medical board guidance requires the doctor to arrange a needed examination or test, or refer you to someone who can carry it out.
This is suggested policy for state licensing boards to adopt. It is not itself a Florida law or proof of what your doctor must do under Florida law.
Ask who will arrange the next step and where it can happen. Compare that answer with the travel and time each setting asks of you.
How will the follow-up fit your day?
Compare the next visit as well as the first. Ask where it would happen, who would manage it, and what it would cost.