Hawaii good-faith exam for med spas

Good-faith examination in Hawaii

THE SECTIONS CITED HERE GOVERN THE PRE-TREATMENT ENCOUNTER THROUGH HAWAII’S TELEHEALTH STATUTE. Telehealth services must include a documented patient evaluation, including a history and a discussion of physical symptoms adequate to establish a diagnosis and to identify underlying conditions or contraindications to the treatment recommended. Treatment recommendations made by telehealth, including an electronic prescription, are held to the same standards as traditional physician-patient settings, and a prescription issued on an online questionnaire alone is not treatment and is not an acceptable standard of care. A physician-patient relationship may be established through a telehealth interaction by a physician licensed in Hawaii, and once established, telehealth may be used for any authorized purpose. Telehealth is defined by its modalities and excludes standard telephone, facsimile, or e-mail contact except through an interactive telecommunications system. The pharmacy act defines the practice of pharmacy to include the compounding, dispensing, and labeling of drugs, and defines a prescription as a practitioner’s order for the compounding or dispensing of drugs; neither cited pharmacy definition names a drug or mentions office stock.

• A physician-patient relationship may be established via a telehealth interaction; provided that the physician has a license to practice medicine in the State. (f) Once a physician-patient relationship is established, a patient or physician licensed in this State may use telehealth for any authorized purpose, including consultation with a medical provider licensed in another state, authorized by this section or as otherwise provided by law.

  Haw. Rev. Stat. § 453-1.3(e)-(f) · verified Sep 8, 2026

• Telehealth services shall include a documented patient evaluation, including history and a discussion of physical symptoms adequate to establish a diagnosis and to identify underlying conditions or contraindications to the treatment recommended or provided.

  Haw. Rev. Stat. § 453-1.3(b) · verified Sep 8, 2026

• Treatment recommendations made via telehealth, including issuing a prescription via electronic means, shall be held to the same standards of appropriate practice as those in traditional physician-patient settings that do not include an in-person visit but in which prescribing is appropriate, including on-call telephone encounters and encounters for which a follow-up visit is arranged. Issuing a prescription based solely on an online questionnaire is not treatment for the purposes of this section and does not constitute an acceptable standard of care.

  Haw. Rev. Stat. § 453-1.3(c) · verified Sep 8, 2026

• "Telehealth" means the use of telecommunications as defined in section 269-1, to encompass four modalities: store and forward technologies, remote monitoring, live consultation, and mobile health; and which shall include but not be limited to real-time video conferencing-based communication, secure interactive and non-interactive web-based communication, and secure asynchronous information exchange, to transmit patient medical information, including diagnostic-quality digital images and laboratory results for medical interpretation and diagnosis, for the purposes of: delivering enhanced health care services and information while a patient is at an originating site and the physician is at a distant site; establishing a physician-patient relationship; evaluating a patient; or treating a patient. Except as provided through an interactive telecommunications system, standard telephone contacts, facsimile transmissions, or e-mail text, in combination or alone, do not constitute telehealth services.

  Haw. Rev. Stat. § 453-1.3(j) ("Telehealth") · verified Sep 8, 2026

• "Practice of pharmacy" means: (1) The interpretation and evaluation of prescription orders; the compounding, dispensing, and labeling of drugs and devices (except labeling by a manufacturer, packer, or distributor of nonprescription drugs and commercially legend drugs and devices); the participation in drug selection and drug utilization reviews; the proper and safe storage of drugs and devices and the maintenance of proper records therefor;

  Haw. Rev. Stat. § 461-1 ("Practice of pharmacy" (1)) · verified Sep 8, 2026

• "Practitioner" means an individual licensed by the State or authorized by the laws of the State to prescribe prescription drugs within the scope of the person's practice. "Prescription" means an order or formula issued by a practitioner licensed by the State or authorized by the laws of the State to prescribe prescription drugs within the scope of the practitioner's practice, for the compounding or dispensing of drugs or an order or formula issued by an out-of-state practitioner in compliance with chapter 328.

  Haw. Rev. Stat. § 461-1 ("Practitioner"; "Prescription") · verified Sep 8, 2026

Recent Hawaii changes

• HI HB2456: Relating To Drugs For Weight Loss.Jan 28, 2026