Virtual visits, real pain relief: Telemedicine brings convenient care for back issues
November 19, 2025
Remote medical appointments surged in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, both patients and health care professionals alike have seen how telemedicine can be a vital resource for people dealing with common health issues.
Our multidisciplinary team at the Spine Center at UT Southwestern has made telemedicine a core part of our clinical practice, delivering quality care to our patients and ensuring their needs are met, even when they don't visit one of our offices. Unless an appointment involves imaging or procedures, we can meet with most patients by video, whether it's their first time seeing us or we've treated them before. Through virtual visits, spine specialists can remotely diagnose and prescribe treatment for spine conditions quickly and accurately. This approach not only saves time and travel, but also allows patients to begin treatment sooner, helping manage symptoms and reach solutions more efficiently.
These visits are often much more timely and are beneficial for patients needing help with many conditions, including:
- Back and neck pain
- Sciatica, which involves the nerves that run from the lower back into the legs
- Spinal stenosis, which involves a narrowing in the spine that puts pressure on the spinal cord and nerves
- Herniated or bulging discs
- Arthritis
- Radiculopathy, which is a pinched nerve in the spine
- Scoliosis, which involves abnormal curvature of the spine
- Spondylosis, a degenerative spinal condition
Benefits of virtual visits for spine problems
Through simple, at-home tests and actions, we can get the same information we would from an in-person visit, from inspecting the affected area to applying resistance and evaluating sense of touch.
We've even developed a video exam template that helps determine whether a patient's ability to perform specific movements may indicate a broad range of conditions. During your virtual visit, the care team member will guide you through a series of targeted actions. By evaluating your performance alongside your medical history, we can more accurately diagnose your condition.
Some of the advantages of telemedicine might be obvious, but there are many reasons why a remote visit could be the best way to get the care you need:
- Convenience: Virtual visits are convenient not only for those with limited transportation but also those with busy schedules. Instead of waiting days or weeks for an in-person appointment and traveling potentially hours away just to find out the next steps for treatment, patients can meet with a provider much earlier from any location. It means less waiting, less time away from work, less driving, and even less gas costs. More importantly, it reduces how long it takes for a person seeking care.
- Comfort: When patients are in pain, the last thing they want to do is take an unnecessary trip. With remote visits, patients can meet with a health care professional anywhere they can take a phone call or video call. This could be their own bed at home, their car, their workplace – wherever they feel most comfortable.
- Better recovery support: At some point during treatment, patients may need assistance from a friend or family member, especially if they undergo procedures like steroid injections or surgery. The more informed that support person is, the smoother the patient's recovery will be. With virtual appointments, it’s much easier to have their support network on the same call with the health care provider to ask questions and get all the information they might need. In some cases, the provider may even get a better idea of the home environment where a patient would recover and can make individual recommendations to tailor their care more effectively.
“More and more of the things we use to make decisions are objective, like laboratory values and MRI scans. It makes a lot more sense if I can learn about you in a 30-minute call and then tell you exactly who you need to see and what studies to get before you take time off work.”
Surgical plans don’t require in-person visits
Spine specialists rely mainly on diagnostic imaging, like MRI scans, and other concrete tests when developing a surgical plan. While hearing directly from patients about their symptoms is important, an in-person visit isn't always necessary to make informed decisions about surgery.
In fact, in a Harvard study I co-authored, we tracked the surgical plans of spine patients and found that 94% of the plans formed from telemedicine visits remained unchanged even after in-person examinations. The few plans that did change only involved minor alterations to the procedures, such as modifying the level of spinal fusion.
If treating a spine issue requires surgery, hard clinical data will play a much bigger role in a spine specialist's decision-making. That's why, even when surgery is needed, virtual consultations can be just as effective as in-person visits.
Types of remote appointments with a spine specialist
Having a conversation about symptoms and treatment options with a health care professional doesn’t require anything more than a device with a camera and an internet connection.
Telehealth visits are especially useful for appointments that don’t require specialized equipment or scans, such as:
- First appointments, where you can meet your clinician to explain your concerns and learn about next steps, which could involve medication, X-rays, MRI scans, or surgery.
- Follow-ups, where the spine specialist can review any scans or test findings with you, discuss initial treatment results, and schedule interventional treatment or surgery if needed.
- Post-surgery reviews, for your provider to check in on your healing after a procedure and address any concerns with your recovery.
- Second opinions, for cases where a patient may have already seen another provider about their issue and received recommendations. Our specialists can review any scans, test results, or other data they’ve gathered and easily weigh in with their own expertise.
With these types of visits done virtually, patients can have much more flexibility with their care and avoid unnecessary delays or travel. Spine Center team members will determine if and when you need to visit a medical provider in person.
Patients, physicians support telemedicine
Patients are generally supportive of virtual visits with their heath care providers. During a recent nationwide survey by Doximity:
- 96% of patients reported their telemedicine visit resulted in equivalent or superior medical care
- 82% said telemedicine helped them better manage their health
- 78% believe it improved their access to health care services
- 83% of physicians want telemedicine to remain a permanent part of their practice
Expert spine care right inside your home
Telemedicine has transformed how we approach spine care, offering patients faster access to expert diagnosis and treatment without sacrificing quality. At UT Southwestern’s Spine Center, virtual visits are not just a convenient alternative to in-person examinations. They are also an effective method for patients to find relief sooner, with the same insight and compassion they’d receive sitting in a doctor's office. For many, the path to healing starts with a simple video call.
Back pain doesn’t wait and neither should you. To make a virtual appointment with one of our spine specialists, call 469-306-1048 or request an appointment online.
