>>>>>Telemedicine and Marijuana<<<<<
California seems to be leading the way in pairing medical marijuana with telemedicine. California’s medical board is more lenient. Their guidelines say that telehealth can be used to establish the qualifying condition for medical marijuana:
"The initial examination for the condition for which marijuana is being recommended must be an appropriate prior examination and meet the standard of care. Telehealth, in compliance with Business and Professions Code section 2290.5, is a tool in the practice of medicine and does not change the standard of care."
The process for actually “prescribing” medical marijuana works a bit differently here, too. While many telemedicine platforms allow physicians to ePrescribe, providers cannot legally prescribe marijuana to patients. That’s because marijuana is a schedule 1 drug. Instead, states with medical marijuana programs generally require providers to fill out an authorization form (sometimes on “tamper-free paper,” in the case of Washington) that patients then take to a medical dispensary. These sorts of additional restrictions can again place limits on whether a medical marijuana consult can happen completely online.
Another important factor here is establishing a provider-patient relationship and documenting a “qualifying condition.” Depending on the state, telemedicine guidelines may require the provider and patient doing the virtual visit to have a pre-existing relationship. Medical marijuana laws sometimes have a similar requirement, especially when the provider needs to document an eligible qualifying condition (like cancer or PTSD) for medical marijuana therapy. To establish that medical condition over a virtual visit, a provider who does not already know that patient may need access to their medical records from another provider which documents that condition and a recent physical exam.
There are still many points for state medical boards to figure out. But as both the medical marijuana and telemedicine industries grow and more systematic guidelines are put into place, we’re likely to see these two phrases get paired together more frequently.
