Thread by @scanman

Listen to the most recent episode of our podcast: LTH E3 – Telemedicine anchor.fm/letstalkhealth…

I'm sharing a partial transcript of this LTH podcast episode of as a thread here.

1. During the ongoing COVID epidemic & nationwide lockdown, many doctors are doing Teleconsultation. Is it legal?
Yes. MCI/BOG has approved & given specific guidelines for practising telemedicine.

2. What are the modes of teleconsultation allowed?

Phone calls, email, text messaging, WhatsApp and other similar platforms, video call etc with different level of permissions for each mode.

3. What are the different ways of Teleconsultation?
a) Patient to Dr
b) Care Giver to Dr, provided the dr is confident that caregiver is competent to carry out instructions
c) Patient to dr thru Health Worker at subcenter/any peripheral center &
d) Dr to other dr/specialist

4. What are the legal & regulatory implications?

All the existing rules, including MCI ethics rules, CEA rules will apply. Also there is a clear demarcation/restriction on what Doctors can prescribe & when to consult over phone / video and when to have in person consultation.

5. Telemedicine appears good in COVID scenario. Safe for Doctor & Patient. Then Why IMA is opposing this?

IMA has noticed that Drs are signing up with Teleconsultation platforms through pharma companies. IMA office bearers know that these platforms are patient-facing platforms

These patient-facing platforms advertise to patients & act as Doctor finding/locating platforms.

Doctors don’t know that it is hard for their patients to search & locate them in these platforms because many doctors get listed & the listed doctors are also rated.

Both the search and ratings are manipulated to favour some of the listed doctors/facilities.

In such platforms, Doctors need to read the contract / terms of service carefully, specifically about data ownership. Doctors are not doing this in the current scenario.

IMA is worried about existing platforms that were ‘contacting patients on their own & advertising when all they had was just the patients’ phone numbers or at the most, their email addresses.

Now, Doctors are going to disclose

a) All the demographic data of their patients including address when they register them in these apps.

b) All the clinical data of their patients that they collect on theses apps.

c) current diagnosis & prescription with all the medications,

d) advise for current investigations or investigations before next review.

e) next review date

Enabling these platforms to market directly to

a) Pharmacies/big chains of their choice

b) Labs (big chain / corporates) of their choice
And possibly many more unscrupulous acts.

That’s the reason IMA has issued a statement advising against telemedicine.

6. What is the solution?

a) Doctors have to be aware of the risks to themselves and their patients when using telemedicine in unknown platforms.

b) Doctors should not jump into Tele consultation platforms based on pharma companies recommendations.

c) Doctors need to verify that the platform they are signing are Doctor/clinic-oriented and not patient-facing or patient-oriented.

Bye 👋🏽👋🏽👋🏽