Online doctors will be banned from prescribing drugs to patients they have never spoken to, under a crackdown aimed at preventing Australians from accessing medicine with a click of a button.
It comes as Medical Board of Australia chair Dr Anne Tonkin warned it was only a matter of time before someone died or suffered serious harm from the “tick-and-flick” prescribing practices of telehealth platforms.
“I’m very concerned that this is really downplaying the complexity of prescribing by making it a sort of tick-and-flick exercise,” Tonkin said. Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Nicole Higgins said she had refused to prescribe weight or contraceptive drugs to patients over health concerns, only for these patients to access the drugs online via quick script providers.
Anthony Tassone, the Victorian president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, said pharmacists were receiving scripts from online providers when it was clear there should have been more involvement from a doctor. “We agree there is a need for clear, consistent safeguards that are informed by broad industry consultation and international examples of best practice.”
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