Informed consent to telehealth

Telehealth is not for emergencies. If this is a medical emergency, call 911. You can also go to your nearest emergency department.

Do not send a message to your care team and wait for a reply. Messages are not monitored continuously. A provider cannot examine you, cannot give you treatment in person, and cannot send help.

Call 911 for chest pain, difficulty breathing, signs of a severe allergic reaction such as swelling of the face, lips, or throat, sudden weakness or difficulty speaking, severe or persistent vomiting, fainting, or any symptom that frightens you. If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Once you are safe, tell your care team what happened, because it may change what is appropriate for you.

Telehealth means receiving health care from a licensed provider who is not in the room with you, using secure electronic communication instead of an in-person visit. The provider assesses you using the information you give: your medical history, your medication list, your symptoms, laboratory results where they have been ordered, and anything you tell them in follow-up.

Providers who review PEPLUX intakes are licensed providers in the Arora Health network, an affiliated clinical organization that is separate from PEPLUX. The provider treating you must hold an active license in the state where you are located at the time of the consultation. That is why the intake asks where you are, and why you cannot be treated from a state where your provider is not licensed.

This information is educational and is not medical advice. It does not establish a provider–patient relationship.

A consultation may be asynchronous: you complete a structured medical intake in your own time, and a provider licensed in your state reviews it, together with any laboratory results, and responds in writing. The provider may ask follow-up questions before deciding, and you should expect them to if your history is at all complicated.

A live video or audio visit is used where the law of your state requires real-time contact before a prescription may be issued, or where the provider decides a conversation is necessary. Whether you can ask for a live visit when neither applies, and whether it costs anything extra, will be stated before you pay.

Asynchronous care has a real advantage: written answers to structured questions are often more complete than what people remember to mention in a short appointment. It also has a real cost, which is the absence of everything a provider would notice by looking at you. Both are true.

• Access to a licensed provider without travel, time off work, or a waiting room.
• Time to answer questions carefully and to check your own records before answering.
• A written record of the consultation that you can re-read, rather than a conversation you have to remember.
• Privacy, for a kind of care that many people would rather not discuss in a shared waiting area.

Telehealth is a limited form of assessment, and pretending otherwise would be the most dangerous thing on this page.

• No physical examination. Your provider cannot listen to your chest, examine your abdomen, take your blood pressure, or look at an injection site. Findings that an in-person examination would pick up may be missed.
• Dependence on what you report. The assessment is only as good as the information you give. An omitted diagnosis, medication, or symptom can lead to a decision that would otherwise have been made differently.
• Delays. Asynchronous review is not instant. A provider may need laboratory results, or clarification, before deciding. This is not the right route for anything that needs an answer today.
• Diagnostic limits. Some conditions cannot be diagnosed or ruled out remotely at all. Your provider may tell you that you need an in-person assessment, and that advice is worth acting on.
• Technology failure. Connections drop, messages are delayed, uploads fail, and video quality can be poor enough to hide something relevant.
• Adverse effects. All medications carry risk. Injectable preparations carry the added risks of injection, including site reactions, bruising, and infection. Your provider should discuss the risks that apply to what is prescribed to you, and the pharmacy supplies information with the medication.

Compounded medications are not approved by the FDA and have not been reviewed for safety, effectiveness, or quality. The FDA does not review or approve any compounded medications for safety or effectiveness. Off-label use must be prescribed and supervised by a licensed provider.

Some products listed on PEPLUX are not FDA-approved and have no lawful pathway for a US pharmacy to compound them today, and their safety and effectiveness in people have not been established. For many of them the evidence in people is limited or absent. Each product page shows that product’s FDA status next to the button that starts an intake, and the status tracker covers every peptide we write about. Read the status for anything you ask about, and ask your provider about it.

Because the regulatory position can change, supply of a product can stop at short notice, which may interrupt a course of treatment.

Consenting to telehealth is not the same as being accepted for treatment, and paying is not the same as being prescribed. A provider may review your information and conclude that telehealth is not an appropriate way to assess you, that the treatment you asked about is not appropriate for you, or that no treatment is appropriate at all.

They may instead ask for laboratory testing, ask for more history, recommend an in-person evaluation, suggest a different approach, or decline. Prescription products require an online evaluation with a licensed provider. Not all patients qualify.

A decision to decline is a clinical decision. PEPLUX does not overrule it. If a provider declines, no medication is dispensed. Whether any amount you have paid is refunded is set out in the refund policy and the terms shown at checkout.

Telehealth relies on electronic systems, and no electronic system is perfectly secure. Consent should acknowledge the risks:

• Data sent electronically can, in rare circumstances, be intercepted or accessed without authorization.
• A device you use may be shared, lost, or seen by someone else. If your device is shared, sign out, and consider whether messages are visible on a lock screen.
• Ordinary email and text messages are not secure. Do not use them for clinical detail.
• A video visit held somewhere public can be overheard. Choose somewhere private.
• A technical failure could delay a message reaching your provider. If something is time-sensitive and you have had no response, contact us rather than assuming it was received.

How information is collected, used, shared, and kept is set out in the privacy policy.

Your consultation, the provider’s assessment, and any prescription become part of your medical record, held to the same confidentiality standards as an in-person visit and kept for the period required by the law of your provider’s state.

You may ask for a copy of your record, or ask for it to be sent to another provider. Please keep your primary care provider informed about any therapy you receive through PEPLUX.

You are entitled to seek care in person instead, and telehealth is not the right choice for everybody. An in-person clinician can examine you, order and interpret a wider range of tests, and manage complexity that is hard to handle remotely.

If you start through PEPLUX and later decide you would rather be seen in person, your records can be sent to whoever takes over your care.

This consent does not set any fee. Any visit fee, the price of any medication, what each price includes, and the refund terms are stated at checkout before you pay, as described in the terms of service and the refund policy.

You may withdraw this consent at any time, in writing, without giving a reason and without penalty. Withdrawing consent stops further telehealth care through PEPLUX. It does not affect care you have already received, and it does not erase the medical record that must be kept by law.

Withdrawing consent is not the same as cancelling an order or a recurring charge. If you want both, cancel as well, in the way shown at checkout. See the refund policy.

If you are stopping a treatment rather than leaving the service, tell your provider. For some therapies how you stop matters, and it is a short conversation worth having.

By accepting this consent during intake, you confirm that you have read and understood the following:

• You are at least 18 years old and physically located in the United States, in the state you have given.
• You consent to being evaluated and, if appropriate, treated by a licensed provider using telehealth, including asynchronous review and a live visit where one is required.
• You understand the benefits, limitations, and risks described above, including that no physical examination takes place.
• You understand that some products listed on PEPLUX are not FDA-approved and have no lawful compounding pathway, and that each product page states its FDA status.
• You understand that a provider may decline to prescribe, and that no outcome is promised.
• You understand that telehealth must not be used for emergencies, and that you will call 911 in an emergency.
• The information you have given is accurate and complete to the best of your knowledge, and you will tell your care team when it changes.
• You may withdraw this consent at any time without penalty.

Your acceptance is recorded with the date and time.

Questions about this consent, or about how a consultation will work, go to our support contact. Ask before you consent rather than after.

Registered entity

To be published before launch.

Postal address

To be published before launch.

Email

To be published before launch.

Please do not send health information by ordinary email. Once the intake is live, patients will be given a secure way to reach their care team, and that is the right channel for anything clinical.