How to have online consultation with doctor : Important tips for patients

Online consultation with the doctors is getting more and more common, as everybody is busy and has a credit card. If you have any medical problem, just log in to any online doctor search and consultation websites and consult a doctor on the phone. The important tips to make the best out of every online consultation with a doctor.

There are many different sites which are offering online medical consultation  in different formats

• Chat/textbases
• Voice
• Video
• Provided are both free and paid

Prefer video if available, or at least phone call. Avoid text-based consultation if possible.

It’s too risky to have free medical advice from anyone.

1. Best sites for online consultation with doctor

lybrate.com

• Lybrate is the site that is focused on the online consultation format. Most favored 
• Consultation in chat, voice, and video.
• Doctors are mostly from the metros only but now they are slowly moving in tier 2 and tier 3 cities as well. 
• Doctors in all specialties like gynecology and psychiatry and nutritionists.

Practo.com

• The biggest player among doctor search websites has pan India presence.
• Only text-based consultation
• Advantage of finding a relevant doctor in proximity
• Provides medication and tests.

askapollo.com

• Provide online consultations with doctors associated with different facilities of Apollo hospitals in metro cities.
• The website shows the credentials of the consulate doctors 
• Advantage of follow up consolation physically

1mg.com

• The primary business is online drugs and medication delivery.
• Online consultation as add on service

2. which medical conditions to be consulted in online doctor consultation

The popular specialties/ doctor consulted are

1. nutritionist/dietitian and health
2. mental health and psychologist
3. skin and dermatology
4. sexologist
5. Ayurveda and homeopathy

3. Advantages of online consultation with a doctor

1. Convenience.   The biggest reason for the people opting for online consultation is the access to medical advice by mobile phones which is ubiquitous and you do not have to visit the doctor in person.
2. cheap: lack of overheads like clinics and staff for attending to patients and a larger number of patients help the doctor to give advice at a lower cost.
3. Availability of a doctor. The non-availability of a specialist in proximity is not an issue as you can assess from a distance.

4. Conditions to be avoided for having an online consultation with the doctors.

Medical emergency

A medical emergency is defined as an acute injury or illness that poses an immediate risk to a person’s life or long-term health.

Never waste your precious time in having online consultation. you should immediately contact the nearest health facility/clinic/doctor/ hospital which can provide first aid and advice regarding further management.

You need advice medical advice for children

Children, in general, can not articulate their physical and mental complaints and express it accurately to others. In these cases, the doctor has to examine the patient in great detail, so as to get an idea about the disease. A simple low-grade fever can be a sign of a sinister medical condition like urinary tract infection. Online consultation is more likely to miss the diagnosis than physical office consultation.

 You need medical advice for an elderly

Just like children, the elderly have a very small margin of error in cases of clinical diagnosis and treatment. They are also more likely to have drug overdoses and infections. 

You need medical advice for patients with hearing, visual impairment, and mental retardation.

These patients have communication problems, both in reporting a problem and any drug complication. Doctors are trained to physically examine these patients to decide the clinical condition and treatment.

You have a disease/ medical condition and develop a new related or unrelated complaint.

If you are known to have blood pressure for many years, for which you may or may not be taking treatment, you have a complaint of difficulty in reading the fine print of a newspaper for a few days. It is quite likely that you may need to change glasses, but you may have a more sinister retinal disease. Online consultation should be the last thing you should have.

You have a disease/ medical condition and need to start a medication or change the existing medication.

All medications,  even those taken for pain, blood pressure, and diabetes have known side effects. These medications have a higher risk of complications if given in combinations. Doctors advise the single or combination of medications after thorough medical examinations only.

You have a disease/ medical condition and need any surgery or procedure.

The decision to carry out surgery or procedure should not be done on asking complaints or seeing the records or reports. later has to be clinically correlated with patients’ physical findings. The same holds good if you need a second opinion for your medical condition or its treatment. The second doctor must examine the patient and then correlate the records to give his opinion.

4. Risk of having an online consultation doctor.

1. Risk of wrong treatment or advice. When you take an online consultation with a doctor, it is presumed that you are knowingly taking the risk of having wrong or inaccurate treatment in exchange for the convenience of having it without seeing the doctor physically.
2. Delayed physical consultation; You may actually delay seeing the doctor in person as you have already received some medical advice. This may delay the identification or treatment of more serious medical conditions.

5. Other important issues related to an online consultation with the doctors

Privacy of personal data in having an online consultation with a doctor.

All companies take measures to protect the personal and medical data of the patients as per prevalent norms and regulations.

Medico-legal issues in having an online consultation

All websites providing online consultation clearly state that they do not own responsibility for the adverse outcome of the consultation or the treatment that patients receive from/through the website. They further clearly state that the patient is aware of the risk involved with having online consultation in which treatment is been advised by the doctor without seeing the patient. Details can be seen in the ” terms of use” or ” terms and conditions” link available in the website footer.

Must read ” terms of use” before availing the services.