Are e-visits as good as office appointments?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A new study suggests that “e-visits” for sinus infections and urinary tract infections (UTIs) may be cheaper than in-person office visits and similarly effective. For e-visits, patients fill out online forms about their symptoms and a doctor or nurse gets back to them within a few hours with treatment advice. In the new study, the main difference between e-visits and office visits was that patients who received their care online were prescribed more antibiotics – a finding that could be concerning but is hard to interpret on its own, researchers said. …