PROFESSIONOnline prescribing results in state criminal chargesIn the Courts. By Bonnie Booth, amednews contributor. Oct. 9, 2006. More than half of the country's state medical boards have disciplined a physician for Internet prescribing. In most cases, medical board officials discipline a doctor who is licensed in their state and has been prescribing through an Internet pharmacy by revoking or suspending the physician's license. Board officials rely on laws -- passed in most states -- that require a previous relationship with the patient or explicitly forbid physicians from prescribing based on a patient's answers on a medical questionnaire. AMA policy requires that "physicians who prescribe medications via the Internet shall establish, or have established, a valid patient-physician relationship." Rarely, experts said, does a state's law enforcement agency charge the physician with a crime. Federal government officials file most criminal charges for Internet prescribing, and a controlled substance is usually involved. But states could find criminal charges a more attractive option for reining in largely unregulated Internet pharmacies if the San Mateo (Calif.) District Attorney's office is successful in its bid to bring to trial an out-of-state physician who prescribed an antidepressant to a 19-year-old California resident who later committed suicide. In late May, the district attorney charged Christian Hageseth III, MD, of Fort Collins, Colo., with one felony count of practicing medicine without a valid California medical license. While it is a crime in most states to practice medicine without a license from that state's board, the San Mateo district attorney's decision to use the California statute to prosecute Dr. Hageseth is a novel tactic, experts said. [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2006 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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