Online consultations make it convenient to acquire prescription medications without leaving home.
People have been seeking online health advice since the internet began.
It is perfectly legal, and it often provides people with important medical information. In 2013, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that 35% of US adults go online specifically to try to find out what medical condition they (or someone else) may have.
Pew asked participants about the accuracy of initial diagnoses, and the results were telling: 41% of online diagnosis-seekers said a medical professional confirmed their diagnosis, with a further 2% saying the diagnosis was partially confirmed by a medical professional. Thirty-five percent said they did not visit a medical provider to obtain a professional opinion, and only 18% of people seeking health information online reported a medical professional offered a different opinion about the health condition.
The groups most likely to go online in search of medical information were women, younger people, white people, those in households earning more than $75,000 a year, and those with college or post-graduate degrees. Here are some of the benefits and advantages of online health consultations.
Advantage: Few Location or Time Boundaries
By going online, people can gain access to medical professionals that might otherwise not be available based on geography or time constraints. People in rural areas, or who work shifts that make accessing traditional healthcare difficult can benefit from accessing medical consultations online. Furthermore, online consultations act as a backstop to other information found online by individuals. While reading medical articles online can be valuable, it’s not a substitute for an actual consultation. Online consultations act as a check on self-diagnoses.
Advantage: Cost-Effectiveness
People without health insurance can pay $120 to $180 for traditional doctor visits, while online consultations cost considerably less. Even for people with health insurance, the “costs” of a medical visit go beyond the office visit charge itself. Often it involves taking unpaid time off work, or using vacation or sick leave for the office visit, and it’s hard to predict how big a time chunk a medical visit will take out of a day, depending on other cases the doctor is dealing with. A $40 co-pay for someone with insurance is really a baseline for the true cost of a visit once time, travel, parking, and other costs are added in.
Advantage: Greater Privacy
It’s often easier to bring up sensitive medical topics with online consultants than with a doctor who knows you. If you’re seeking information on sexual health, erectile dysfunction, a weight problem, or cosmetic problems like acne, it’s not always easy to make that call for an in-person consultation. Online consultations offer a greater level of privacy, and a legitimate online consultation offers the strictest online privacy standards both for information exchanged and products ordered online.
What Research on Online Medicine Shows
Dr. Ateev Mehrotra, an associate professor at Harvard, conducted studies on convenience and cost for online, or “e-visits” to medical consultants. While patients in Mehrotra’s studies interacted with their own doctors or doctors in the same practice online, the results were encouraging for the two conditions studied: sinusitis and urinary tract infections. Mehrotra’s team found that diagnosis and treatment were equally successful in e-visits and traditional visits for patients with these conditions.
How Online Consultations Work at eDrugstore.com
eDrugstore.com offers online consultations with contracted physicians for our customers, and we do not charge additional fees for them. They are simply covered as part of the cost of the medications you may order as a result of the consultation, and there are no hidden charges. Many of the medications available on eDrugstore.com require a prescription, and customers may submit an existing prescription by faxing it, or by scanning and emailing it. Customers who do not have a prescription may consult with one of our contracted physicians who will review medical information thoroughly and determine whether a particular prescription is appropriate based on this information. And there is no extra charge for this service.
How Customers Place Orders at eDrugstore.com
If you don’t have a prescription, if one of our state-licensed US physicians reviews your information and approves your request, your prescription is sent to the pharmacy where it is filled by a state-licensed pharmacists and shipped. Should the physician in your online consultation require addition information, he or she will get in touch with you in a timely manner to make a more informed decision on whether a prescription is appropriate for you.
eDrugstore.com has been serving satisfied customers for over 15 years, with name-brand medications that address a range of lifestyle conditions such as erectile dysfunction. We contract with US-licensed physicians and pharmacists and ship using trusted companies like FedEx. eDrugstore.com is fully committed to customer satisfaction, privacy, and online security.
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