Telehealth Video Visit Tips for Patients and Clinicians

A good telehealth video visit comes down to preparation on both sides of the camera. Patients get the most out of a video appointment by testing their technology in advance, setting up a quiet well-lit space, and arriving with a medication list and written questions. Clinicians get the most out of it by mastering "webside manner": deliberate eye contact with the camera, thoughtful framing, narrating what they are doing, adapting the physical exam to video, and closing every visit with unmistakable next steps. This guide covers both audiences, because the best video visits happen when each side understands what the other needs.

This article is the modern successor to one of the earliest pages on this site, "Smile for the Camera," written when video visits were a novelty rather than a routine part of care — a shift you can trace in the site's history.

Part One: For Patients

Test your technology the day before

The most common way a video visit goes wrong is also the most preventable: the technology fails at the moment of the appointment. A five-minute check the day before eliminates most of it.

• Device. A smartphone, tablet, or computer with a camera and microphone all work. A larger screen makes it easier to see your clinician and any images they share, but the best device is the one you are comfortable using.
• Software. If your clinic uses an app or a patient portal, install it and log in ahead of time. If the visit runs through a web link, open the link early — some platforms ask you to grant camera and microphone permissions the first time, and it is far better to click through those prompts the day before than at 9:59 for a 10:00 appointment.
• Connection. Video needs a reasonably steady internet connection. Wi-Fi close to your router, or a strong cellular signal, is usually enough. If your household shares limited bandwidth, ask others to pause streaming or large downloads during your appointment.
• Audio. Earbuds or headphones improve sound quality in both directions and keep your health conversation from broadcasting through the room. Test them with a friend or a voice memo.
• Power. Plug in your device or start with a full battery. Video calls drain phones quickly.

Most platforms offer a "test your connection" or "check my device" tool; use it. If your clinic offers a pre-visit tech check with a staff member — many do, especially for first-time patients — take them up on it. The federal telehealth hub at HHS maintains plain-language patient preparation guidance that mirrors this advice.

Set up your space

Where you take the call shapes how well your clinician can see and hear you.

• Light in front of you, not behind you. Sit facing a window or a lamp. If a bright window is behind you, the camera turns you into a silhouette, and a clinician who cannot see your face cannot assess pallor, rashes, labored breathing, or affect.
• Camera at eye level. Prop your phone or laptop so the camera sits roughly at your eye height — a stack of books works fine. A camera looking up from your lap gives your clinician a view of your ceiling and your chin, neither of which is diagnostically useful.
• Quiet and private. Choose a room where you can close the door. Televisions, barking dogs, and family conversations make it hard for your clinician to hear you, and privacy matters: you should feel free to speak candidly. If home offers no privacy, a parked car is a time-honored telehealth exam room.
• Stable, not handheld. Prop the device rather than holding it. A steady image is easier to examine, and your hands stay free to point to where it hurts, take a blood pressure reading, or write things down.

Prepare your information

A video visit runs on the same fuel as an office visit: accurate information. Because no nurse will room you and reconcile your chart, more of that preparation falls to you.

• Medication list. Write down every prescription, over-the-counter medicine, and supplement you take, with doses — or simply gather the bottles next to you. This is the single highest-value piece of preparation for most visits.
• Home measurements. If you have a thermometer, blood pressure cuff, glucose meter, pulse oximeter, or scale, take readings before the visit and have recent numbers handy. Patients enrolled in remote patient monitoring programs should have their device data synced.
• Your questions, written down. Appointments move fast, and it is easy to forget the thing you most wanted to ask. Three to five written questions, in priority order, is the habit that separates a satisfying visit from a frustrating one.
• Symptom story. Be ready to say when the problem started, what makes it better or worse, and what you have already tried. For anything visible — a rash, a swollen joint, a wound — good lighting matters, and a few clear photos taken in daylight and uploaded through the portal beforehand often beat a live camera shot.
• Pharmacy and insurance details. Confirm which pharmacy you want prescriptions sent to, and have your insurance card nearby in case the office needs it.

If English is not your preferred language, tell the scheduling staff in advance so an interpreter can join the visit — practices that receive federal funding are generally required to provide language access, and most major platforms support three-way interpreter calls. Patients who need other accommodations, including captioning or extra time, should ask; there is more on this in our article on telehealth usability and the digital divide.

What to expect during the visit

A video visit follows the same arc as an office visit, compressed. Expect to verify your identity and location (clinicians are generally required to know what state you are in, because medical licensure is state-based — see telemedicine laws by state for why). Expect the clinician to ask questions, look at whatever the camera can show, possibly guide you through self-examination maneuvers, and finish with a plan.

Speak a beat more slowly than you would in person, and do not be afraid to say "you froze for a second — can you repeat that?" Audio lag and dropped frames are normal; pretending you heard something you did not is how instructions get missed. Take notes, or ask whether the visit summary will appear in your portal.

If the video fails entirely, do not panic and do not assume the appointment is lost. Most practices fall back to a phone call. Confirm at the start of the visit: "If we get disconnected, will you call me at this number?"

When video is not enough

Video visits handle a large share of routine care well — follow-ups, medication management, mental health care (see telepsychiatry), skin concerns, minor acute illnesses, chronic disease check-ins, and reviewing results. They are the wrong tool for some situations, and knowing the difference is part of being a prepared patient:

• Emergencies. Chest pain, signs of stroke, severe difficulty breathing, uncontrolled bleeding, or a mental health crisis with immediate risk of harm call for 911 or the emergency department, not a video queue.
• Hands-on findings. Abdominal pain that needs palpation, an ear infection in a squirming toddler with no home otoscope, a possible fracture — some diagnoses require touch, instruments, or imaging.
• Procedures and tests. Vaccinations, lab draws, EKGs, and physical procedures obviously require presence, though a video visit can often decide whether they are needed.

A well-run telehealth program treats the video visit as a front door, not a wall: when the clinician says "I need to see you in person," that is the system working, not failing.

Pre-visit checklist for patients

Part Two: For Clinicians

Webside manner is a learned skill

Clinical communication through a camera is not a diluted version of in-person communication; it is a distinct skill with its own techniques, increasingly taught in telehealth education and training programs and addressed in AMA and American Telemedicine Association practice guidance. The clinicians who are rated highly on video are rarely just "naturals" — they have adopted a handful of deliberate habits.

• Look at the camera, not the screen. On video, looking at the patient's face on your monitor reads to the patient as looking down and away. Periodically looking directly into the camera lens — especially when delivering important information or empathy — recreates eye contact. A practical compromise: position the patient's video window as close to the camera as possible, and glance at the lens at key moments.
• Frame yourself professionally. Head and shoulders visible, camera at eye level, light on your face, background uncluttered or appropriately blurred. Patients form impressions of competence from the frame before you say a word.
• Acknowledge the medium. Name the technology out loud: "If the video freezes, I'll call you right back at the number we have on file." "I'm going to look away for a moment to pull up your labs — I'm still listening." Narrating pauses prevents the patient from reading a downward glance as distraction or bad news.
• Slow down and signpost. Audio compression clips the natural overlap of conversation. Leave a beat after the patient finishes speaking; interruptions feel more abrupt on video than in person. Signpost transitions: "I have three things I want to cover — symptoms, your labs, and the plan."
• Check understanding explicitly. The nonverbal feedback loop is thinner on video. Teach-back ("Just so I know I explained it well — how will you take the new medication?") does more work here than in the exam room.

The virtual physical exam

The video exam is limited but far from empty. With a cooperative patient, good lighting, and clear instruction, clinicians can gather substantial objective data:

• General observation. Work of breathing, skin color, hygiene, affect, tremor, and nutritional status are all visible — often in the patient's own environment, which is itself clinically informative in ways an exam room never is.
• Guided self-examination. Patients can palpate their own abdomen while you watch their face for wincing, press on an ankle to demonstrate pitting edema, or point a phone camera at a rash, a surgical wound, or the back of the throat with a household flashlight.
• Musculoskeletal and neurologic screening. Range of motion, gait (have the patient prop the phone and walk across the room), facial symmetry, and coordination maneuvers translate to video reasonably well.
• Home devices. Blood pressure cuffs, glucose meters, pulse oximeters, thermometers, and scales extend the exam; ask patients to take readings on camera so you can verify technique. Connected devices and structured remote monitoring programs close the loop between visits.
• Know the edges. Auscultation, palpation by trained hands, otoscopy without a home device, and anything requiring instrumentation remain out of reach in a standard video visit. Documenting what could not be examined — and what the patient was told about it — is both good medicine and good risk management.

State the limits to the patient plainly. "I can see the swelling clearly, but I can't feel whether it's warm — if X or Y happens, I need you to be seen in person within 24 hours" is honest, safe, and builds rather than erodes trust.

Run the visit like a clinician, not a call center

• Verify identity and location at the start. Confirm who you are speaking with and the state the patient is physically in; licensure and prescribing rules turn on it, as covered in our overview of telehealth laws.
• Confirm privacy on both ends. Ask whether the patient is somewhere they can speak freely, and disclose anyone off-camera on your side. Use a platform your organization has vetted for security — the essentials are covered in telehealth security and HIPAA.
• Have a failure plan and say it out loud. Backup phone number confirmed in the first minute, every visit.
• End with unmistakable next steps. The close matters more on video because there is no checkout desk to catch loose ends. Before disconnecting: the diagnosis or working impression in plain words, what you are prescribing or ordering and where it is going, what the patient should watch for, the specific triggers that mean "go to urgent care or the ED," and when and how the next contact happens. Then confirm the patient can repeat it back.

Pre-visit checklist for clinicians

The visit is a shared production

In-person medicine puts nearly all the logistical burden on the clinic: the building, the room, the equipment, the workflow. Video visits redistribute that burden — the patient supplies the room, the lighting, and half the equipment, and the clinician supplies structure and clarity that the medium will not supply on its own. When both sides prepare, the technology disappears and what remains is the conversation, which was always the point.