Telehealth vs. Telemedicine: What’s the Difference?
Telehealth is the broad term for any health service delivered from a distance, and telemedicine commonly refers to the clinical part of it, such as a video visit with a doctor. Florida law, in section 456.47, defines telehealth as telecommunications technology a provider uses for health care services, including assessment, diagnosis and treatment, but not e-mail or fax.
What Is the Difference Between Telehealth and Telemedicine?
People often use the two terms as if they meant the same thing. The difference is scope: Florida’s telehealth law also covers monitoring, health education and health administration, while telemedicine usually means clinical care.
What Is Telehealth?
Telehealth covers any health service delivered at a distance through electronic devices and communications technologies, medical or non-medical: training for doctors and nurses, check-ups through apps and virtual clinic meetings all count.
What Is Telemedicine?
Telemedicine is usually used in a narrower sense: remote medical services only, over the same devices and connections, and not training or other non-medical work. Some examples of telemedicine may include a doctor having a video chat with a patient to consult about a health problem they’re experiencing or making a possible diagnosis over a phone call.
For example, a home blood-pressure cuff that sends readings to your clinic is telehealth, and the video visit where your doctor goes over those readings with you is telemedicine.
What Are the Benefits of Telehealth and Telemedicine?
Each brings its own benefits to patients and healthcare providers.
Benefits of Telehealth
- Remote Monitoring: Telehealth lets physicians remotely monitor the health and developments of their patients, without needing to physically check on the patients or bring them into their clinics over and over. With the aid of remote telehealth devices, for example, it’s possible to track how a patient is responding to a treatment.
- Mobile Health: A big part of telehealth is the development and implementation of mobile health apps. Both patients and members of the general public can make use of these apps to learn more about their health, discover possible warning signs or symptoms, and educate themselves on healthcare and medicine.
- Education: Telehealth also covers the remote or online training of healthcare professionals, from doctors to nurses. With telehealth apps, programs, and resources, medical students and professionals can learn more and develop their skills without the need for physical in-person classes and courses.
Benefits of Telemedicine
- Fewer trips: Telemedicine is the clinical visit itself, so it is the part of telehealth that can replace a trip to the office. Our guide to telemedicine benefits covers what a telehealth renewal saves a Florida patient.
- Flexible: With no trip to an office, a visit takes less of the day. In Florida, a renewal by telehealth may even be audio-only, but only with the physician who did your in-person exam.
- Long-Term Support: Distance, time and cost can keep patients from seeing their doctors as often as their care calls for. For people with chronic conditions, a video or phone check-up can make regular follow-up easier to keep, though some problems still need a doctor to examine you in person, as the section below explains.
What Are the Limits of Telemedicine?
Remote care has limits, and Florida medical marijuana law shows one: “Before issuing an initial certification to a patient, the qualified physician must conduct an in-person physical examination of the patient,” reads one of the four sentences in section 381.986(4)(a)1, and the same subparagraph defines that as an exam with the physician in the same room as the patient. Some problems call for an office visit, because a doctor may not be able to examine and diagnose them accurately over a video or phone call, and some care can only be given in person.
When Is Telehealth Used, and When Is Telemedicine?
In general, telehealth is used for general monitoring of patients and more independent patient care, letting the patients track and monitor their conditions or send data to their doctor remotely over an extended period of time. Telemedicine fits a visit about something specific, such as a follow-up with your doctor, though a new problem may still need an in-person exam.
Can You Renew a Florida Medical Marijuana Certification by Telehealth?
States set their own rules on using telemedicine for marijuana as medicine. In Florida, marijuana doctors must examine you in person for your first certification; after that, only the physician who examined you in person may renew your certification by telehealth, and the state’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use says a telehealth visit may be an audio-only phone call. Contact us for more details.
What Is the Difference for a Florida Patient?
Telehealth is the umbrella term and telemedicine is the clinical visit inside it; for a Florida medical marijuana patient, the renewal rule above is the part that matters.
Last updated October 16, 2026 by the Dr. Green Relief Editorial Team.
Medical review
Medically reviewed by Achilles Kalnoky, M.D.
Reviewed on .
He is licensed in Florida as a medical doctor, license ME115088, which you can check on the Florida Department of Health license lookup.
His review covers the medical statements in this post and the sources cited for them.
