Crack Down On Cyber Doctors And Their Internet Prescriptions
from the online-medicine-is-for-kooks-only? dept
The State of California has had enough with online doctors prescribing medicine to patients they've never met. They've started to crack down, and have taken away one doctor's license, and levied massive fines against others. The doctor's are fighting back. The ones who were fined (six doctors, fined for a total of $48 million) are saying that since they're not in California, the state has no jurisdiction over them. Meanwhile, the one doctor who had his license revoked (who is in California) insists that he did nothing wrong in reviewing patient files and prescribing medicine online without actually meeting with the patients themselves. It certainly is a fine line, as the opportunities to abuse such a system are probably greater than having to meet with a doctor in real life. However, there probably are plenty of situations where an online doctor could make more sense - and save people lots of money. My guess is that, over time, new (much more strict) regulations will come about for the online practice of medicine, but it may take a while.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Old Concept
One might argue that telemedicine is valid for situations where the patient already knows what medicine to get. However, seemingly innocuous symptoms may be part of a more serious problem the patient hadn't thought of. For that, there is no substitute for being examined in person. Physicians notice more than the patient realizes.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
who are these people they are gods to me
[ link to this | view in thread ]