Check the clinician’s licence
As of September 2026, US government guidance says remote clinicians must hold a licence or other practice permission for the patient’s location.
State rules have exceptions and differ. Let the service know the state where you will be when the visit takes place.
If the clinician is a doctor, get their full name and licence details. Then look up that doctor at the state medical board, which licenses doctors in the state. Its public records show whether the doctor has a licence and any published action the board has taken against them.
A record with no published action against the doctor does not measure the quality of their care. For another kind of clinician, ask which licensing board holds their record.
What does a proper online assessment involve?
The national group for state medical boards advises against using a fixed form alone to prescribe without enough information to assess the patient.
A form can be part of care when the clinician can ask more questions. As of September 2026, the rules a service must follow still depend on the state.
The group also advises that patients must be able to put questions to the clinician after the visit. This is advice for state boards to use when setting their rules. It is not a law that every state must follow.
What exactly is being offered?
In the US, medicines are reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As of September 2026, FDA approval applies to semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and also to tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound).
Compounding is making a medicine for an order, rather than supplying a product already made.
Compounded medicines lack FDA approval as of September 2026. Before sale, the FDA does not review these medicines for safety, how well they work or the quality of their manufacture.
A need that approved products cannot fill may be met by compounding. That does not make every compounded offer lawful.
As of September 2026, US rules limit pharmacies and doctors making copies of available medicines to order regularly or in very large amounts.
A copy can use the same medicine ingredient, at the same or a similar strength, and be taken the same way. Under these rules, adding a vitamin alone does not turn a copy into a different product.
A prescriber may judge that changing a medicine gives a particular patient an important medical difference from the ready-made product. The prescriber must document what changed and why that change matters for the patient. That can allow an exception to the copy rule.
A cheaper price does not count as that medical difference.
Ask the prescriber what is different about the medicine offered to you and which rule allows it. An advertisement alone cannot answer that for your care.
The FDA had confirmed by September 2026 that semaglutide and tirzepatide were absent from its national shortage list.
A medicine missing from a local pharmacy’s stock does not create a national shortage exception.
Name the pharmacy behind the order
Get the pharmacy’s full name before you agree to order the medicine. The FDA notes that an online service’s users may be unsure who prepared their compounded medicine.
Check the pharmacy in your state board of pharmacy’s records; this is a different board from the one that licenses doctors.