The person behind the service
Who is allowed to prescribe here?
Start with a name and a role. A service name alone does not tell you who will make the care decision.
A badge and a licence tell different things
Ask about
What the answer needs to cover
A seal on the site
Health-site logos and promises of refunds can be fake, warns the Federal Trade Commission.
A state board record
Doctors are overseen by their state medical board. Its public record shows whether a doctor has a licence and any published penalties or charges over their work.
No board action shown
A clean public record means no penalty or charge is shown there. The quality of the doctor’s care cannot be judged from that record.
Use the board record to check permission to practise. Use the visit questions to judge the proposed care.
Check the state where the visit happens
A licence is a state’s permission to practise.
For an online visit, your location matters when checking the prescriber’s permission to treat you.
The September 2026 US health guidance tied prescribing permission to the patient’s location: a prescriber must be licensed there or otherwise legally authorised by that state.
Some states let a prescriber from another state register for permission to give online care. This option was available in some states in September 2026.
Ask what permission lets this person treat you in your state. Match their name, job and licence number to the state board’s record.
Check the role as well as the name
Ask for the person’s role: physician assistant, nurse practitioner or doctor.
Prescribing rules for physician assistants and nurse practitioners depend on their state. Both kinds of prescriber are health professionals. Those rules differed in September 2026.
For a doctor, begin at the state medical board. For other roles, ask who licenses that profession in the state and where its records can be checked.
For links to boards covering different kinds of doctors, use the Federation of State Medical Boards.
Keep the matching record with the name you were given.
Questions after the name checks out
- Will this person review my history and answer my questions?
- Who will make later treatment decisions?
- How do I obtain my own copy of this visit’s record?