Telehealth Prescribing and Treatment

Telehealth prescribing and treatment is appropriate for many medical conditions. In this article we list medicines and conditions both appropriate and inappropriate for telehealth. These lists can save you time and money because it can be handy to know what to expect before you have an online care visit.

Conditions Treated With Telehealth

Telehealth works well with many common health issues where you will find telehealth prescribing routine. Here’s a partial list of conditions we treat:

Video and Photos In Telehealth

Using video and photos is key to getting the highest quality care in an online visit. Also, if you’re looking for a specific result from your visit, photos or video may help you achieve your goal. For instance, if you need to get a prescription refill, your Floriamed healthcare provider will require a photo of your medicine bottle. They require the photo for your safety so they can be absolutely sure you are getting the correct medicine.

Floriamed providers are nurse practitioners (NPs). So in addition to medicine, they practice care. And since nurses care, your Florimed NP will very much want to use video in your visit. That’s because they can better advocate on your behalf if they use video.

For instance, a face to face visit, let’s your NP better understand your problem and really see how you feel. They can simply examine your situation better with video. And that means they can create a diagnosis and treatment plan for you that they feel is the highest quality available.

So if your child is sick, your NP will want to see them. They will want to see how they act, how they move, if they smile, and how they breathe. And the story is the same for every patient. So you’ll always get better care from an NP, if you use video.

But please remember, your Floriamed NP will always want to help you, even if you don’t use video. There’s no video requirement. But for your best care, we highly recommend it.

Telehealth Prescribing: How It Works

Medications are not sold by Floriamed or included in the cost of a visit. But Floriamed healthcare providers do write prescriptions. Your prescription is sent electronically to the pharmacy of your choice. And they do this within a few moments after your visit ends. In this way, your medication is available in the time it takes your pharmacist to fill your prescription.

At the time of your visit, you must be located in the same state as your chosen pharmacy. Healthcare providers must be licensed in the state where they practice and prescribe. So before your visit, you must provide the state where you are currently located. This is required to make sure your provider can send your prescription to your local pharmacy.

Your Floriamed provider can send your prescription to any local pharmacy you choose. However, they cannot send your prescription to online or mail-order pharmacies.

If for some reason you do not pick up a medication prescribed for you, you should not be charged by your pharmacy. That is because you have complete authority over your medical treatment and the medicines you take. The final decision on the medical treatments you accept is yours and yours alone to make. You should never be penalized for making these decisions, financially or otherwise.

Medical Guidelines

Healthcare providers at Floriamed use medical guidelines with care. These guidelines are like the rules of medicine. They are based in science. And they are what make your care safe and effective. So when our providers prescribe medicines they always follow the guidelines. They will not and should not prescribe outside the guidelines because these guidelines are what keep you healthy and safe.

In the coming sections, this article will show how medical guidelines affect prescribing at Floriamed. In particular, it will show how new prescriptions and prescription refills work at Floriamed. But it also lists medicines that we do not prescribe. And it briefly explains why some medicines are not appropriate for online care.

Telehealth Prescribing: New Prescriptions and Refills

Although telehealth prescribing is common in many cases, there are also cases where new prescriptions should not be written online. However, in these cases, Floriamed providers may still refill prescriptions written by your in-office provider.

Our policy for refills is as follows. Patients may have no more than three months of refills in any 6 month period. This policy exists to encourage people to have close ties with an in-office primary care provider. This is very important in cases of long term medication use. But also, having a primary care provider will simply improve the quality of your overall healthcare.

Medications Inappropriate for Telehealth Prescribing

You can get many medications with online medical care, but not all. The subheadings that follow discuss the medicines that Floriamed providers do not prescribe.

Medications Subject to Abuse

The U.S. DEA defines medications subject to abuse as controlled substances. Floriamed providers do not prescribe controlled substances, including refills. Some examples of controlled substances are as follows:

Medications Not Suitable for Telehealth

Medications may not be suitable for online care for any number of reasons. But for ease, we can break it down into three basic reasons:

And in reality, those three reasons can be summed up into just one. That is, prescribing that requires close ties with a primary care provider is not suitable for telehealth prescribing.

For instance, high blood pressure and diabetes may require a lab test or in-office visit before you get a new prescription. And the same is true for chronic problems like heart disease. So, Floriamed providers do not write new prescriptions for conditions like these. But Floriamed providers may still supply refills for these conditions, and many others as well.

Prescribing medicines for mental health, smoking cessation, and weight loss require close monitoring of patients. And thus, prescribing for these conditions requires the guidance of your in-office primary care provider. Floriamed providers do not write prescriptions, including refills, for mental health, smoking cessation, or weight loss. The following is a partial list of medicines not suitable for online care because they require close monitoring of patients:

Finally, Floriamed providers do not prescribe or refill medicines for male pattern baldness or erectile dysfunction. These include Viagra, Cialis and Propecia.

Prescribing Contrary to Medical Guidelines

Patients sometimes request medicines not supported by medical guidelines. Floriamed providers cannot prescribe medicines contrary to medical guidelines. A popular example of this issue is the incorrect use of antibiotics. Incorrect use and overuse of antibiotics has helped create bacteria that cannot be killed by antibiotics. They have become resistant to them. And as a result, they have become a “major threat” to our health.

So, of course, Floriamed providers cannot prescribe antibiotics unless they think it’s the right thing to do. And the same is true for anything else they prescribe. You see, the decisions they make are not casual ones. Instead, they are based on their years of study on the medical guidelines.

Working with Your Healthcare Provider at Floriamed

Please know that your Floriamed provider truly wants to advocate on your behalf. They want you to get better. And they will do anything they can to help you. Safe treatments that succeed are what they desire.

All Floriamed providers have worked hard to be experts in their field. So please accept that all prescribing at Floriamed is done at the discretion of the individual provider. They are trained to work with their patients. And they want to work with you. So we hope you will work with them. And we hope you will respect them and their expertise.