Online Doctor's Note in Texas

Texas’s telemedicine rules and what an online note needs to satisfy

Texas law recognizes a valid physician-patient relationship formed through telemedicine, but the exact requirements depend on how the visit happens. Under Tex. Occ. Code section 111.005, a practitioner can rely on a preexisting relationship, a call-coverage arrangement, synchronous audio-video, or asynchronous “store and forward” technology. That last path specifically requires the practitioner to use clinically relevant photographic or video images, or the patient’s existing clinical records, along with meeting the standard of care set out in section 111.007. A text-only symptom questionnaire, on its own, doesn’t obviously fit that specific asynchronous pathway. CuroNote is building its Texas process to meet the state’s telemedicine standard of care, and we are not claiming our questionnaire alone satisfies the asynchronous rule until that has been confirmed with counsel.

No statewide sick leave law, and a local preemption fight still in court

Texas has no statewide law requiring paid or unpaid sick leave, so time off is governed by employer policy. Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio each tried to pass their own paid-sick-leave ordinances, but courts struck down or enjoined all three. A 2023 law, HB 2127, was written to preempt future local ordinances like those, but a July 2025 ruling from the Third Court of Appeals addressed only whether Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso had legal standing to challenge the law, not whether its preemption of local ordinances holds up on the merits. The cities have said they may raise the constitutional question again if a specific local ordinance is challenged under the statute. With no state sick-leave law in effect, a Texas employer can generally ask for a note under a reasonable policy.

Verifying a physician’s Texas license

The Texas Medical Board licenses physicians in the state and offers a free public license lookup where you can search by name, license type, city, or specialty to confirm a physician’s license is active and see any board actions. That’s separate from your own note: whether you share it, or ask a physician to confirm anything about it to an employer, is your call.

Before CuroNote launches in Texas

CuroNote hasn’t launched in Texas yet. The site is in a pre-launch reserve phase: no payment is collected, and no physician is currently reviewing requests. Once live, a physician licensed in Texas will review each intake and, if appropriate, sign a note.