I've seen the online visits before, Humana insurance offers it too. The only problem is, how do they know if it's not something more serious than the common cold or slight inner ear infection? Not that I see a doctor for the common cold anyways... if that's all that I think it is, and that has gotten me in a bit of health crisis because I thought it was nothing but the common cold, when it was walking pneumonia or a strep infection (not always just strep throat either as strep can infect other parts of the body).

I rarely run fevers and when I do they kind of have to be "caught" because it'll spike for a minute or so and then drop right back down. I've had bronchitis so many times that I don't really notice that I can't breath that well until I well and truly can't breath!!! I mean I've gone for just the regular check-up/physical with my doctor and left with a script for antibiotics and an exporant because I had bronchitis and didn't even know it, I wasn't coughing, and thought I had no problem breathing, and wasn't running a fever or anything.

And what I thought was just tonsillitis one time (negative strep culture) turned out to be walking (viral) pneumonia that took 6 months to go away. Again, no fever, and took about a month before I notice any trouble breathing despite having half a lung in the beginning that was filled with fluid. Midway through recovery it became 1 and over a half lungs filled with fluid and I probably should have been hospitalized but I went to Camden Malpractice Center and the ER doctor didn't think I was in any danger or suffering from pneumonia although my lips were blue, and my blood pressure was 50/30 and oxygen level was 75%. I was fine... (and too oxygen deprived to argue as all my remaining brain cells were just trying to keep me sitting up and conscious.) And my PCP at the time when I went down to see him the next day decided not to hospitalize me simply because I was still walking and talking and thought I really was doing alright, he was afraid that if he did put me in the hospital I would realize I really wasn't doing alright at all and I would just curl up my toes on him.

So I still need some kind of physicality when seeing a doctor or even a nurse practitioner, I'm not picky on which I see honestly at a doctors office. But if I'm going to see a doctor I really need them to give me the once over every time I go in there whether it's for a routine check-up, or a cracked shin... I hate them touching me, but I still need them to check the ears, check the throat, feel the glands, listen to the lungs, etc... About the only thing I know is coming on before even the doctors do, is an inner ear infection Not sure if that's a great thing or not though, as I usual feel it coming on at least a week before the doctors can see anything at all the matter with them and then when they do they freak out about how infected my eardrum is and how close it is to potentially rupturing (usually accompanied with a lecture of why did I wait so long and let them get so infected at which point I tell them to refer back to their notes... been there how many times in the past week telling you I have an ear infection...)

But I'm so lacking in symptoms of most illness that I just simply go to the doctor anytime there news of a strep outbreak, or if anyone in my family has strep or knows they've been exposed to it. And an online doctor can't do a throat culture to see if I caught strep or not (I do very much so wish they could though... that needs to be the next technology they come up with digital doctor house call bags, with speakers designed to listen to the lungs, an at home culture kit, maybe even find away to reduce the amount of blood needed to test for things and get it to where a simply prick of a finger (like the diabetes tests) can test for everything.

I mean they already have it to where strep cultures aren't grown in petri dishes anymore where you'll find out for sure that you have strep within the next 24 hours. Now it's a 5 minute test on a little pregnancy test type thing (I need to get my hands on some of those testing kits now that would save me many a trip to the doctor)