The Medical Board of Australia (MBA) has released updated telehealth guidelines, declaring that prescribing medication without a real-time consultation with a patient "is not good practice."
Following a five-month consultation period, the MBA said the revised guidelines would "close the gap that's sprung up between online prescribing business models and good medical practice."
The MBA stopped short of an outright ban on the practice, opting instead to formally state its opposition to so-called "tick and flick" online prescribing in the hope that doing so will help curb its growing prevalence.
The finalised guidelines build on a draft version, published in January, which were broadly welcomed by the medicinal cannabis trade associations.
According to the guidelines, "prescribing or providing healthcare for a patient without a real-time direct consultation, whether in-person, via video or telephone, is not good practice and is not supported by the board."
The document goes on to state: "This includes asynchronous requests for medication communicated by text, email, live-chat or online that do not take place in the context of a real-time continuous consultation and are based on the patient completing a health questionnaire, when the practitioner has never spoken with the patient.
"Any practitioner who prescribes for patients in these circumstances must be able to explain how the prescribing and the management of the patient was appropriate and necessary in the circumstances."
MBA board chair Dr Anne Tonkin said: "A doctor who has not consulted directly with the patient and does not have access to their medical records is unable to exercise good, safe clinical judgement."
The guidelines are set to take effect on September 1.
