Complaints to the national medical practitioner regulator arising from telehealth appointments have increased by 413% in three years, a significant number of these relating to prescriptions.
The data provided to Guardian Australia by the Medical Board of Australia comes as the body prepares to release new guidelines for health practitioners and companies that provide telehealth consultations with patients.
Guardian Australia understands the guidelines, to be made public by Friday, will state that real-time video or phone consults are “preferred” over real-time text-based consults such as online chat because identification is harder to establish without video.
The guidelines will not ban real-time text-based consults but they will mean online quizzes, for example, can not be used to diagnose and prescribe medications to patients.
“Prescribing or providing healthcare for a patient with whom you have never consulted, whether face-to-face, via video or telephone is not good practice and is not supported by the board,” the draft guidelines state.
“This includes requests for medication communicated by text, email or online that do not take place in real-time and are based on the patient completing a health questionnaire but where the practitioner has never spoken with the patient.”
The final guidelines are expected to keep largely with the draft and will make it explicit that consultations must be in real-time.
It follows concerns about a rise in inappropriate prescriptions being issued by online providers who do not require rigorous medical background or identification checks.
A Medical Board of Australia spokesperson said over the past three years, the number of issues stemming from telehealth appointments reported to the regulator increased by 413%, rising from 98 in 2019/20 to 503 for year to date.
“This is not entirely unsurprising, given the rise in telehealth during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the spokesperson said.
Of the complaints relating to a telehealth appointment, those concerning prescribing issues jumped from 10 in 2019-20 to 85 for the year to 24 May – a 750% increase.
“The proportion of notifications received about medical practitioners that relate to inappropriate, unlawful or inaccurate prescribing has increased from 9.9% of all medical notifications in 2019-20 to 11.6% of notifications for year to date 2022-23,” the spokesperson said.
Practitioners now under investigation include cases of healthcare providers prescribing without adequately taking into account patient history; failing to recognise adverse drug reactions when prescribing; prescribing medication for which the patient has an allergy; and prescribing pain medication for extended periods of time without in-person patient review.
