The regulator has finally amended its Tuesday press release to acknowledge phone and video consults as roughly equivalent to in-person consults.
AHPRA has now updated its media release on telehealth guidance, which initially appeared to contradict previous advice on prescribing standards, just as the TGA prepares a cannabis crackdown.
The original release, which was issued on Tuesday, claimed that “good telehealth practices include … only prescribing if you’ve consulted with the patient face-to-face before”.
This statement was in direct opposition to the guidance that the press release was announcing, which said “practitioners who prescribe medicine via telehealth should … be aware National Boards do not support or consider it good practice to prescribe medicine … for a patient that a practitioner has never consulted, whether face-to-face, via video or telephone”.
Following multiple requests for clarification from The Medical Republic, the media release now reads that “good telehealth practices include … only prescribing where you’ve had a face-to-face, video or telephone consultation with the patient”.
Technically, the purpose of this week’s release was to expand existing telehealth guidance for doctors to cover other health professions, like nurse practitioners.
The expanded guidance was part of AHPRA’s larger body of work in reigning in “emerging business models focused more on profit than patient safety”.
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Other activities in that area have looked at medicinal cannabis and non-surgical cosmetic treatments; AHPRA used almost identical wording in issuing wider-ranging updates on medicinal cannabis prescribing earlier this year.
Just last week, the RACGP and NSW teamed up with the Pharmacy Guild and the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia to specifically call for more restrictions on vertically integrated medicinal cannabis clinics, a number of which are online-only.
It comes as the TGA reportedly received more than 750 submissions to its review of the safety and regulatory oversight of unapproved medicinal cannabis products.
This review is expected to recommend major reforms to the two pathways by which patients in Australia can access an cannabis products, which it has deemed “no longer appropriate due to the high volume of patients accessing an ever-increasing range of products”.
