How One Telehealth Firm Is Lobbying US Officials to Keep Prescribing Drugs Online
US officials mull permanent rule change to let online startups write prescriptions for controlled substances
Source: Getty Images
With the future of the US telehealth industry at stake, Bart Stupak, a former congressman and current lobbyist, has spent the past year trying to undo legislation he helped pass more than a decade ago.
Stupak is asking federal policymakers to let online clinicians keep prescribing controlled substances — even though federal investigators are looking at that practice and have interviewed former employees at two telehealth startups, according to people familiar with the conversations. One of those companies, Done Global Inc., specializes in treating attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder with prescription stimulants and has paid Stupak's firm $150,000 for the lobbying effort.