A method for providing a covering physician service includes informing a patient of a practicing physician of the availability of the plurality of patient terminals and referring the patient to one of the patient terminals upon the agreement of the patient. A call from the patient at the patient terminal is received at a call center. The call center enables any of a first plurality of physician (or other health care practitioner) terminals to be in audio-visual communication over the network with any of a second plurality of patient terminals. The call is routed to an available physician or other health care practitioner at one of the health care practitioner terminals so that the available physician may carry on a two-way conversation with the patient and visually observe the patient. The available physician or health care practitioner is permitted to make an assessment of the patient and to treat the patient.