Add Category
The national medical board has slapped conditions on the registration of a doctor linked to a popular website that offers “instant” prescriptions for pharmaceutical products including antidepressants, contraceptives and pain medication.
InstantScripts allows customers to obtain prescriptions for more than 300 medicines online mostly by filling out questionnaires that are reviewed by doctors and, if approved, can be sent “in minutes”. Dr Asher Freilich, 42, was listed on the company’s website as its managing director and part of the medical team that oversees more than 80 doctors until inquiries from this masthead on Monday.
Medical entrepreneur Asher Freilich was an investment banker before returning to medicine.Credit:AFR
The rapidly growing Melbourne-based company, which processed 450,000 transactions last financial year, has been linked with a potential $200 million sale. Notes on Freilich’s publicly available medical registration file reveal conditions were imposed on October 20 requiring him to get more education and submit to an audit of his practice as a result of undisclosed “issues”.
The audit will focus on areas including clinically assessing patients, obtaining test results before prescribing, and co-ordinating care with other doctors, according to the conditions. The auditor will also review at least 60 case files, including for patients receiving prescription medications such as cosmetic injectables, antibiotics, antidepressants, hormone treatments and HIV preventatives. Freilich will also have to complete an approved education program covering similar ground to the audit, at his own expense.
The Medical Board of Australia imposed the conditions on October 20 this year, but they have gone unreported until now. The reason for the conditions has not been disclosed, though they state that Freilich must complete “a reflective practice report demonstrating, to the satisfaction of the board, that the practitioner has reflected on the issues that gave rise to this condition...”
Freilich declined interview requests through a spokeswoman who provided written answers to questions. She said there were no conditions on the scope of Freilich’s practice, and said the notification from the medical board was the result of questions “from another healthcare provider, not a patient”.
“The conditions relate to an agreement to undertake an audit of practice following a proactive discussion with AHPRA about InstantScripts’ clinical governance framework,” she said. “In the four years InstantScripts has been operating, it has provided over one million services and there have been no patient complaints to AHPRA.”
A spokesman for the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), which oversees the medical board and maintains the register, said: “We are not able to discuss matters relating to individual practitioners or release information, apart from details which are listed on the public register.”
On the InstantScripts website, Freilich is now listed as CEO, co-founder and part of its management team, rather than its medical team, which is a transition that a company spokeswoman said long predated the registration conditions.