 Telemedicine drug prescriptions limited by Feds. In response to the opioid crisis, the Biden administration required consumers to visit a doctor before acquiring ADHD or addictive opioids on Friday. After three years of telehealth doctors' appointments by phone or computer during the pandemic, the plan might change how millions of Americans acquire some drugs. The Drug Enforcement Agency announced late Friday that it will reintroduce federal standards for potent medications that were waived during COVID-19, allowing doctors to write millions of prescriptions for Oxycontin and Adderall without seeing patients. Vicodin, Oxycontin, Adderall, and Ritalin, the federal government's most misused drugs, must be prescribed in person. Telehealth can prescribe refills. The agency will also restrict doctors' ability to give less addictive medications to unmet patients. Coding, Xanax, Ambien, and Buprenorphine can be prescribed by Telehealth for a 30-day first dose. Refills require a doctor's visit. Telehealth visits can still prescribe antibiotics, birth control, skin treatments, and insulin. DEA administrator in Milgram called the new regulation extension of telemedicine with guardrails because it balances safety and access for rural patients. According to David Herzberg, a pharma historian at the University of Buffalo, certain corporations may be over-prescribing medications to those who don't need them because of the pandemic's ease of access. Herzberg stated both sides of this tension have good points. You don't want hurdles to give folks prescriptions they need. But, removing those restrictions allows profiteers to market drugs to those who don't need them. In 2021, opioid overdose deaths reached a record, with three quarters of them caused by drug producers, pharmacies, and doctors who marketed the medications to patients decades earlier. According to the CDC, synthetic opioids like fentanyl killed more people that year than prescription medications. Fentanyl is frequently found in counterfeit prescription medications and other illicit narcotics. Telehealth startups treating and prescribing mental health and ADHD drugs have boomed in recent years, but the proposed laws will cripple the industry. The pandemic's moratorium on in-person medicine visits has mostly benefited the sector, although several national shops ceased filling drug orders from some telehealth apps over the previous year. During the past two years, the DEA has grown increasingly worried that certain startup telehealth companies are unlawfully prescribing addictive medications like opioids or ADHD medicine, putting patients at risk, a DEA official told the Associated Press on Friday. The person said the agency aims to implement the new regulation before the COVID-19 public health emergency expires on May 11, ending the eased rules. Jeremy Scherer, a Boston-based attorney for telehealth providers, advised patients considering treatment from a doctor hundreds of miles away to start planning in-person appointments now. The legislation gives patients six months to see their doctor in person. Providers and their patients need to know what that therapy is going to look like moving forward and whether, once the public health emergency ends in May, they'll need to figure out a means to have a visit in person before continuing treatment, and that can be a big challenge, he added. Numerous states have reinstated cross-state telemedicine care restrictions. By October, roughly 40 states in Washington, D.C., had stopped emergency declarations that allowed doctors to see patients in other states. These restrictions, what do you think? Comment below.