Accredited Psychiatry & Medicine | Harold J. Bursztajn, MD, Forensic Psychiatrist | Dr. Bursztajn's Consultation to the American Psychiatric Association on Telemedicine

The provision of an informed consent form to a patient or guardian should not be considered to be a substitute for an informed consent process.
Care must be taken to insure that the patient is well aware that telemedicine is still experimental as a clinical practice. In addition to the risks attendant to well established clinical practice clinical practices, it carries with it the risk of loss such benefits as are attendant to the face to face patient - physician healing relationship.
Where telemedicine has been introduced as a means of lowering the cost of clinical care and services provided to the patient, the patient or guardian should be so informed.
The patient or guardian should be informed of any financial incentives, or potential conflicts of interest influencing the recommendation that telemedicine be provided as an alternative to direct patient-physician provision of services.

Information about the patient contained shall not be transferred in case of MCO or institutional mergers without the patient or guardian's explicit permission.