You must be aware that medical marijuana cards exist and they need to be renewed from time to time as well. It is known that the Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, recently signed a few bills and one of them involved the renewal of medical marijuana cards as well. With this bill being signed, it becomes a law which states that the first visit for medical marijuana card has to be in-person but the follow up visits can be done via telehealth. This means that people who need medical marijuana cards will no longer to visit in-person just for renewals and they will be able to take advantage of telehealth features as well. Obviously, this comes as a positive sign for those who are not able to visit in-person to renew their cards due to one reason or the other but it is still worth noting that the first visit for creating a medical marijuana card needs to be in-person for security reasons.
On the signing of House Bill 387 into law, Christine Torres, owner of Rooted Zen Healthcare, said, “You can go to any doctor and see them telemedicine but for medical marijuana, you weren’t allowed to”. “This changes it and makes it more open to other people.” Another medical assistant said, “Definitely helps us to see patients that typically have difficulty coming into the office, so these are patients on hospice or patients who are bed-bound, or patients who simply have a busy schedule and can’t take off work,”
Analysts also said that to have in-person visit for the first time is reasonable but adds that “I understand why they have the first one where they have to come in-person, just to save any fraudulent issues, but telemedicine for renewals is a good, a good thing”. However, some believe that the first in-person visit should be removed too as “We still have very sick patients who still need to start their initial certification, so that’s something we hope will change in the future.” They hope that this provision or requirement will be removed in the future but it is still a good start.
