Posted by John Ager on 19 May 2015.

Over the past few years, online physician services providers have become increasingly popular. You can check out a website that digests many of them here.

For around $50, you can have a video consultation with a physician or nurse practitioner who can attempt to diagnose a variety of conditions and prescribe basic pharmaceuticals if necessary.  It seems to make sense. The patient gets seen much more quickly than they likely would trying to schedule a traditional appointment.  The visit can occur anywhere the patient has a computer and internet connection.  And, its relatively inexpensive with more insurers covering such visits all the time.  Of course, there are limitations as health care provides can’t come through the screens just yet.  Still, for many health care issues, online medicine appears to be the wave of the future

So, what’s a patient to do when medical malpractice occurs as the result of an online? Well, as always, it likely depends on the situation. Procedurally, a claim is likely to follow the same path as any other medical claim.  Physicians practicing “telemedicine” must be licensed in the state where a patient they are advising is located.  Therefore, a claimant would not be required to travel to a different state to file a lawsuit.  However, this may not be true of the companies who contract with them which might also have liability for the conduct of the health care providers they recommend or refer patients to.  The American Medical Association provides additional practical and ethical considerations here.

The more interesting question is whether the standard of care – what a reasonable physician is required to recognize and do under the circumstances – is the same in a telemedicine setting as it is for an in person visit.  Knowing the physical limitations imposed by the online visit, health care providers certainly must  be much more vigilant,  and perhaps be more willing to make a referral that might otherwise be avoided by an in- person visit.  It seems to me, however, that patients, who have the right to expect the same reasonably good care online as they would get in person, also must understand the limitations of telemedicine and use common sense when seeking online care.