There are two ways to buy prescription drugs online. One involves obtaining a prescription from a medical doctor and sending it to an online pharmacy for filling. The other involves finding a pharmacy that will provide an online consultation with a medical doctor who will consider the patient's needs remotely and prescribe medications for him, without an in-person exam. Then, the online pharmacy will allow him to purchase the medications he needs, shipping them to the address he provides.
A person many choose to get an online drug prescription because he is able to find good deals or save time he would normally spend standing in line at his local pharmacy. The process of obtaining prescription drugs in this way doesn’t differ very much from going to a brick-and-mortar store to purchase medicines. The patient presents a prescription, sending it through the mail or faxing it in, and the pharmacist provides the medication and charges the patient. There are even some online pharmacies that accept medical insurance.
The laws in some countries also allow a person to get an online drug prescription and have it filled on the Internet. In some places, the law does not require a doctor to have a face-to-face meeting with a patient in order to prescribe medication. As such, some online pharmacies provide consultations or virtual meetings with a doctor who assesses the patient’s needs and provides an online drug prescription. Often, this consultation is provided for a fee, which may not include the costs of any drugs the doctor prescribes.
Before a person can get an online drug prescription from a virtual doctor, the doctor typically requests a medical history from the patient and asks a number of questions designed to ascertain the patient’s health status, history of illness, allergies to medication and current medication use. By evaluating the symptoms the patient describes, he may be able to determine the medication the patient needs without ever seeing him in person.
While consulting a virtual doctor to get an online drug prescription may provide benefits for the patient, such as convenience, some people do question the safety of this approach. They worry the doctor may overlook important signs of illness when consulting with patients in this manner or prescribe drugs that interact badly with others the patient is taking, simply because the doctor doesn’t have extensive knowledge of the patient’s history or the ability to give a physical examination.
