One of Australia’s most high-profile technology start-ups has escalated its battle with health regulators and lobby groups, with Eucalyptus chief executive Tim Doyle accusing the Medical Board of Australia and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners of “technophobia” and “bad-faith attacks” on its business model.
Late last year, new guidelines from the Medical Board came into effect, cracking down on asynchronous prescriptions. The regulator said those consultations are often conducted via a patient completing a health questionnaire without a practitioner speaking with the patient. Eucalyptus operates online health brands including reproductive healthcare provider Kin, skincare provider Software, men’s health outfit Pilot and women’s weight loss brand Juniper which, according to Doyle, resulted in 60,000 patients losing more than 226,000 kilograms in 2023.
“We’ve seen drastic changes made to telehealth prescribing guidelines, with justifications based on the anecdotes of regulators, rather than the data that we’ve made available for analysis.“We should be focused on how best to regulate digital clinics to ensure they are a safe option for patients, rather than trying to bad-faith attack them out of existence. Of course, the GP-patient model is the ideal model of care, but it is a delusional one in modern society.
Tonkin said she “absolutely accepts” there’s a role for telehealth, and that it was crucial during the pandemic. “Telehealth businesses should be regulated like fintech businesses. If I had a doctor or a nurse practitioner, I could set up a digital clinic this afternoon and send out my first prescription by 2pm. Whereas, obviously, if I’m starting a banking product, it’s going to be six-to-12 months of approvals and a whole lot of infrastructure to do that.