The American Medical Association (AMA) has been consistently outspoken against proposed legislation looking to authorize pharmacists to leverage test results to directly diagnose patients. AMA warns that such “scope creep” is detrimental to patient health because an isolated lab test depicts only a snapshot of overall health, which is not enough to determine treatment. AMA stresses that pharmacists are not trained to diagnose patients, and it has defeated pharmacist-prescribing proposals in Alabama and Louisiana. Pushing …
Read MorePharmacists With Prescribing Privileges: A New Class of Medical Practitioner
Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc, is Practice Management Editor for JUCM, serves on the board of directors of the Urgent Care Association of America, and is Vice-President of Strategic Initiatives for Experity. Urgent message: State boards of pharmacy, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, and large national drugstore chains are pushing for regulatory changes that would enable pharmacists to diagnose medical conditions and prescribe a range of medications, creating a new class of health-care …
Read More