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Is an exam required before a patient can be treated in Mississippi?

Intake · part of The Practice Perimeter

Short answer
Yes — for telemedicine, an appropriate history and exam meeting the standard of care must precede diagnosis and treatment, and prescribing requires a prior exam; a questionnaire alone won't do. The cited rules set no separate exam rule for in-person visits.

The sections cited here govern the pre-treatment encounter through the medical board’s telemedicine and internet-prescribing rules and the nursing board’s prescribing rule. a valid physician-patient relationship for telemedicine requires verifying the patient’s identity, an appropriate history and physical examination meeting the standard of care, a diagnosis established through accepted practices, a discussion of the diagnosis and treatment options to obtain informed consent, follow-up care, and a complete medical record. Providers using telemedicine must examine before diagnosing and treating, and the examination need not be in person if the technology gives the physician the same information as a face-to-face exam; a simple questionnaire without an appropriate exam violates the rule. The internet-prescribing rule says prescribing to a person the physician has never met, based solely on answers to a set of questions, fails an acceptable standard of care. An advanced practice registered nurse may not prescribe any medication without a good faith agreement subsequent to examination and medical indication. Telemedicine is the practice of medicine through HIPAA-compliant telecommunication systems capable of replicating an in-person encounter, and practicing it into Mississippi from out of state requires a Mississippi license. The pharmacy act defines the practice of pharmacy to include compounding and dispensing; that definition names no drug and says nothing about office stock.

Drawn from 7 verified rules in this section · regulatory monitoring, not legal advice

Related Mississippi rules

  • In order to practice any form of telemedicine, as defined in R.5.1 , a valid “physician patient relationship” must be established. The elements of this valid relationship are: A. verify that the person requesting the medical treatment is in fact who they claim to be; B. conducting an appropriate history and physical examination of the patient that meets the applicable standard of care; C. establishing a diagnosis through the use of accepted medical practices, i.e., a patient history, mental status exam, physical exam and appropriate diagnostic and laboratory testing; D. discussing with the patient the diagnosis, risks and benefits of various treatment options to obtain informed consent; E. insuring the availability of appropriate follow-up care; and F. maintaining a complete medical record available to patient and other treating health care providers.

    Miss. Admin. Code Title 30, Part 2635, Rule 5.4 · verified Sep 8, 2026

  • Providers using telemedicine technologies to provide medical care to patients located in Mississippi must provide an appropriate examination prior to diagnosis and treatment of the patient. However, this exam need not be in person if the technology is sufficient to provide the same information to the physician as if the exam had been performed face to face. Store-and-Forward Transfer Technology may be used to enhance, but never replace, real-time provider-patient interaction. Provider-patient interaction may be audio-visual or audio only where medically appropriate. Other exams may be appropriate if a licensed health care provider is on site with the patient and is able to provide various physical findings that the physician needs to complete an adequate assessment. However, a simple questionnaire without an appropriate exam is in violation of this policy and may subject the physician to discipline by the Board.

    Miss. Admin. Code Title 30, Part 2635, Rule 5.5 · verified Sep 8, 2026

All 7 cited Mississippi rules on good-faith examination →

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← All Mississippi rules and changes · MedSpaRadar is regulatory monitoring and reference: it summarizes public laws, regulations and agency actions and links each to its source. It is not legal, medical, or compliance advice, and using it creates no attorney-client relationship. A summary can lag its source or leave out detail, and monitoring itself can be interrupted — so an absence of alerts means nothing reached you, not that nothing happened. Read the cited source, check its effective date, and confirm any change to your operations or clinical practice with qualified health-law counsel and your medical director. Legislative data via LegiScan (CC BY 4.0).