Board of Medical Practice urges against exception for questionnaire‑only prescriptions in S.28

David Herlihan, executive director of the Vermont Board of Medical Practice, told the committee the board opposes a provision in S.28 that would allow medication to terminate a pregnancy to be prescribed based solely on an adaptive questionnaire without interaction between prescriber and patient.

“My understanding … is that there should be some kind of interaction between the prescriber and the patient,” Herlihan said. He told members the board accepts asynchronous communication — for example, time‑delayed chat — but opposed a model in which a prescription issues only when a questionnaire’s automated algorithm returns a result without any back‑and‑forth.

Herlihan said the board’s policy and Vermont statutory practice standards require “some level of interaction” and that those standards were created in part…