Telehealth Malpractice: Are Remote Providers Accountable for Missed Diagnoses and Other Negligent Errors?

Telehealth promised convenience, and for many Michigan patients, it has delivered. But when a virtual visit goes horribly wrong is there any accountability? When the provider misses a serious diagnosis or writes a prescription that should never have been written, are there potential legal claims for the serious consequences?.  About two-thirds of telemedicine-related malpractice claims in recent years have involved diagnostic errors. Here is how the courts are responding.

Virtual Care Requires the Same Standard of Care

A persistent myth in telehealth is that the standard of care somehow lessens or softens when the visit happens by video. Courts have rejected that idea.

Whether the provider sits across the room or appears on a screen, they owe the patient the same level of skill, diligence, and judgment that a competent professional would/should exercise. The duty does not change.

What does change is how that standard is met. Without the ability to physically examine a patient, providers must compensate by asking better questions, ordering appropriate and necessary tests, and recognizing when a virtual visit is not sufficient to properly manage the patient’s care. Courts have made clear that a missed exam is not a defense. In some cases, it is the failure to strongly recommend/insist on a live exam that constitutes the medical negligence.

Why Diagnosis Failures Dominate Telehealth Claims

It may be very difficult or impossible to diagnose the problem with just the information from the patient’s mouth. For example, a patient may describe vague abdominal pain. The provider, working only from that description, may diagnose indigestion and recommend antacids. Due to the lack of a proper exam, and/or proper labs and imaging studies, that patient may be hospitalized 2 days later, after having emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix. (With proper care, that could have been avoided.) Variations of this scenario may occur when the missed condition is sepsis, stroke, an ectopic pregnancy, or an evolving cardiac event.

In lawsuits involving telehealth, the scenarios courts have repeatedly examined include:

• Failure to recommend an in-person evaluation when symptoms warranted one.
• Failure to order labs, imaging, or specialty referrals in order to properly care for the patient and arrive at a timely and accurate diagnosis;
• Prescribing medications or testing without an adequate review of the patient’s history, medications, specific symptoms or allergies; and
• Failure to follow up on abnormal results or unresolved symptoms;

Each of these categories has produced findings of liability. The common thread is straightforward. The technology is new, but the obligation to act reasonably is not.

The Federal Crackdown on Prescription Practices

Misdiagnosis is one face of telehealth malpractice. Reckless prescribing is another, and the federal government has moved aggressively against it. In November 2025, the Department of Justice secured convictions against the founder and former clinical president of a digital health company that prosecutors alleged distributed more than 40 million Adderall pills through a subscription-based platform with limited clinical oversight.

In late 2024, a telehealth company entered a non-prosecution agreement and paid more than $3.6 million to resolve allegations that it pressured providers to boost stimulant prescriptions. These enforcement actions matter for civil cases, too. They establish, in concrete factual records, the kinds of prescribing practices regulators consider unlawful, and they give injured patients a roadmap for the evidence that supports a claim.

What Michigan Patients Should Know

Michigan medical malpractice law applies to telehealth the same way it applies to any other medical care. Patients generally have two years from the date of the negligent act to file a claim, with a discovery rule that can extend the window in limited circumstances.  The Statute of Repose bars almost all claims after six years.

When the medical malpractice occurred during a Telehealth visit, and the treating provider was licensed in another state, this can affect the choice of law and the parties you can sue. Documentation also matters more in virtual care, because the medical record is often the only contemporaneous evidence of what was discussed and decided during the visit. Saving every visit summary, prescription confirmation, and patient portal message is very important. Telehealth is not going anywhere, and most virtual visits are entirely appropriate. But when remote care causes real harm like a delayed cancer diagnosis, an untreated infection, or a prescription that should have raised alarms, the law provides a path forward to a possible remedy and compensation. If you believe a telehealth provider’s negligence injured you or a family member, contact Sommers Schwartz today.