Telehealth Informed Consent and Patient Authorization

Effective Date: 08 September 2026
Last Updated: 08 September 2026
Version: 1.0

Please read this before an online doctor review or consultation. It explains how telehealth works, its benefits and limits, your alternatives, privacy and recording rules, fees, emergencies, and your right to stop.

1. What Telehealth Means

Telehealth is healthcare provided when you and the clinician are in different locations using secure digital tools. Depending on the service shown to you, it may include a health questionnaire reviewed later by a doctor, secure messages, a telephone call, a live video consultation, document or photo review, remote follow-up, or a combination.

Before you agree, the booking or assessment identifies the modality, material fees, responsible provider, and information needed. A follow-up may use a different modality and requires notice and consent appropriate to that interaction.

2. Telehealth Is Not for Emergencies

Do not use telehealth or wait for a NowExpress response in an emergency. Call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department for severe chest pain, difficulty breathing, signs of stroke, loss of consciousness, severe bleeding, a severe allergic reaction, thoughts of harming yourself or another person, or another urgent or rapidly worsening condition.

If urgent symptoms appear during an interaction, tell the clinician immediately. The clinician may stop the online service, advise emergency care, contact an emergency resource when legally and reasonably appropriate, or ask someone near you to help. Your current physical location and an emergency contact may be requested for this reason.

3. Who Provides the Medical Service

Telemedicine is provided by a physician licensed to practise medicine in the Philippines. Before or at the start of the interaction, you receive the physician's name, professional role, and a way to verify or ask about the physician's licence and provider affiliation.

The physician is responsible for medical judgment and must use the same professional standard of care expected in an in-person encounter, within the limits of telemedicine. NowExpress is separately responsible for the platform, coordination, payment, customer-service, and regulated pharmacy or distribution work it performs. This includes pharmacy records, dispensing, labeling, counseling, product integrity, traceability, complaint handling, and recalls where applicable to your transaction.

You may ask the clinician to identify themselves and explain their role. The clinician may also ask you to confirm your name, birth date, current location, and identity before discussing health information.

4. What May Happen During the Service

  • You provide symptoms, history, medicines, allergies, measurements, photographs, records, and other relevant information.
  • The clinician reviews the available information, asks questions, and may assess possible causes, risks, or treatment options.
  • The clinician may provide advice, a care plan, a prescription when clinically and legally appropriate, a diagnostic request, monitoring instructions, follow-up, or a referral.
  • The clinician may decide that the available information is insufficient and request video, telephone, additional records, testing, or an in-person examination.
  • The interaction and clinical decision are documented as part of the appropriate health record.

An online questionnaire or automated flag may organize information or identify a safety concern, but it does not make the final medical decision when professional judgment is required.

5. Possible Benefits

  • Access to a licensed clinician without travel for a concern that is suitable for remote care.
  • Faster exchange of information, follow-up, prescription review, or referral in some cases.
  • Coordination with a pharmacy, laboratory, or delivery service when you authorize and the service requires it.
  • Reduced exposure to crowded facilities and improved access for some mobility, location, or scheduling needs.

These are possible benefits, not guarantees. The suitability and result depend on your condition, information, technology, and available services.

6. Limits and Risks

  • The clinician may be unable to perform a hands-on physical examination, directly measure vital signs, observe subtle signs, or verify all information remotely.
  • A condition may be missed, misunderstood, or diagnosed later because information is incomplete or the remote format is unsuitable.
  • Photographs, audio, video, device measurements, or connection quality may be unclear or inaccurate.
  • Messages may be delayed, a call may disconnect, the platform may be unavailable, or an unauthorized person may overhear or gain access despite safeguards.
  • A prescription, test, referral, or in-person visit may still be required, adding time or cost.
  • Not every medicine, condition, patient, or first-time concern can be managed safely online.

A first-time consultation, emergency or serious condition, or situation that requires face-to-face assessment or physical contact is not managed solely through telemedicine. The clinician may direct you to an in-person provider before giving a diagnosis, treatment, medical certificate, or prescription.

7. Your Alternatives

You may choose an in-person clinic, hospital, emergency department, community provider, pharmacy consultation, or another available healthcare service instead of telehealth. You may ask the clinician whether waiting, testing, or in-person assessment is safer. Choosing not to use telehealth does not remove your right to access other available care.

Availability, travel, and cost of an alternative may differ. NowExpress will explain a referral or available alternative it offers, but cannot guarantee that an independent facility will accept you or have immediate capacity.

8. Your Responsibilities

  • Use your real identity and participate from a private, reasonably safe location in the Philippines unless the provider confirms another arrangement is lawful.
  • Give complete and truthful information about symptoms, history, allergies, pregnancy or breastfeeding, medicines, supplements, prior treatment, and recent test results.
  • Tell the clinician when information changes, you do not understand an instruction, or symptoms worsen.
  • Use a reliable device and connection where possible, keep booking links and session details private, and prevent unnecessary people from hearing or seeing the interaction.
  • Do not drive, operate machinery, or take part from an unsafe place.
  • Do not record, livestream, copy, or share the interaction without the physician's consent and any other consent required by law.
  • Follow agreed prescriptions, monitoring, tests, referrals, and emergency instructions, and seek in-person care when advised.

A technical or communication problem is not your fault merely because you are the patient. Tell us promptly so the interaction can be safely continued, rebooked, or handled under the refund rules.

9. The Clinician May Decline or Stop Telehealth

The clinician may decline, pause, or stop telehealth if identity cannot be confirmed, information is insufficient, the connection is unsafe, privacy cannot reasonably be protected, the condition is outside the clinician's scope, a physical examination or test is needed, prescribing would be unsafe or unlawful, or emergency or specialist care is more appropriate.

When reasonably possible, the clinician will explain the reason and next step. Stopping telehealth for safety is not abandonment when appropriate referral or emergency instructions are given. The commercial treatment of the fee and unfulfilled products is explained before payment and in the Refund, Return, and Cancellation Policy.

10. Prescriptions, Certificates, Tests, and Referrals

Consent to telehealth does not guarantee a prescription, a requested medicine, a medical certificate, a test, or a particular diagnosis. The clinician decides what is clinically appropriate and legally permitted. A pharmacist separately validates and dispenses a prescription.

The clinician may recommend additional information, laboratory or imaging tests, a specialist, an in-person examination, or emergency care. You are responsible for arranging an external referral unless NowExpress expressly confirms that coordination is included.

11. Privacy, Confidentiality, and Records

We collect and use the identity, health, device, communication, payment, and audit information needed for the telehealth service, safety, documentation, support, and legal duties. The Health Information Privacy Notice and Consent shown before collection explains the immediate purpose, recipients, required information, and your choices. The Privacy Policy explains broader practices and rights.

The clinician creates or contributes to a clinical record. NowExpress and the provider limit access according to role and use reasonable privacy and security safeguards. Confidentiality may be limited when disclosure is authorized by you, needed for treatment or coordination, required by law or court order, necessary to protect life or safety, or otherwise lawfully permitted.

Use headphones and a private room where possible. Tell the clinician if another person is present. The clinician may ask that person to identify themselves, leave, or confirm their role and your permission.

12. Audio, Video, and Other Recording

A telehealth interaction is not audio- or video-recorded by default. A separate recording may occur only after the purpose, access, storage, retention, and consequences are explained and both the patient and physician, plus anyone else whose consent is required, agree.

Consent to receive telehealth is not consent to record it. Refusing an optional recording must not block the consultation unless recording is legally necessary for a specifically disclosed service, in which case an alternative should be explained. Ordinary clinical notes and technical security logs are not the same as an audio or video recording.

13. Fees, Insurance, Cancellation, and Technical Failure

Before payment, we will show the professional fee, any medicine, diagnostic, delivery, or platform charge, accepted payment method, and applicable cancellation and refund rule. NowExpress does not promise insurance or HMO reimbursement unless the transaction specifically confirms coverage.

If a clinician or NowExpress cannot provide the paid interaction, you may accept a reasonable rebooking or provider reassignment; otherwise the affected fee is refunded. If technology interrupts the interaction, we first try to reconnect and then provide an appropriate continuation, rebooking, partial refund, or full refund based on professional work actually completed.

A completed professional review is generally not refundable merely because no prescription was issued or the clinician recommended testing or in-person care. This does not remove a remedy for an unprovided or materially imperfect service.

14. Follow-Up and Continuity of Care

The clinician explains the plan, warning signs, medicine instructions where applicable, tests or monitoring, follow-up timing, and how to get help. Ask questions if anything is unclear. A separate provider may need relevant records to continue care, subject to your authorization or another lawful basis.

Telehealth messages are not continuously monitored unless a service specifically says otherwise. Do not assume that sending a message creates immediate clinical review. Use emergency or in-person care when timing matters.

15. Voluntary Choice and Your Right to Stop

Using telehealth is voluntary. You may ask questions before agreeing, refuse telehealth, or stop during the interaction. Tell the clinician that you want to stop and ask what in-person or follow-up care is recommended.

Stopping or withdrawing consent applies to future telehealth activity. It cannot undo professional services already provided or require deletion of clinical, consent, transaction, or safety records that must lawfully be kept. It does not prevent processing supported by another lawful ground.

16. Minors and Authorized Representatives

A parent, guardian, or other legally authorized representative must participate when required for a minor or a patient who cannot provide valid consent. We may verify identity and authority. The representative must act in the patient's interests and tell the clinician who is present.

Where appropriate, the clinician also explains the service to the patient and seeks the patient's assent. A representative's involvement does not automatically remove the patient's confidentiality rights or the clinician's duty to speak privately with the patient when appropriate and lawful.

17. What Your Consent Means

By selecting the telehealth consent control, you confirm that:

  • You are the patient or a verified person legally authorized to decide for the patient.
  • You received and understood an explanation of the telehealth modality, provider role, expected process, possible benefits, material risks and limitations, alternatives, fees, privacy practices, recording rule, follow-up, referral, and emergency limitations.
  • You had an opportunity to ask questions and received answers you understand.
  • You understand that no diagnosis, prescription, medicine, certificate, test result, or health outcome is guaranteed.
  • You voluntarily agree to receive the specific telehealth service shown to you.
  • You authorize the service-related exchange of relevant information with the identified clinician and, when part of the service, the NowExpress pharmacy or another specifically identified dispensing pharmacy, selected laboratory, and necessary support providers, subject to the Health Information Privacy Notice and applicable law.
  • You know that you may stop telehealth and request another form of care.

This consent does not authorize optional marketing, research, testimonials, or audio or video recording. Those uses require a separate choice where applicable.

18. Required Consent Record

The consent control is unchecked by default. The record shows the patient and any representative, verified authority where applicable, clinician or provider, service and modality, notice and consent version, date and time, booking, transaction, request, or service reference, and method of acceptance. You may request a copy of the consent record.

We ask for a new consent when the modality, provider role, material risk, recording status, or purpose changes in a way not covered by the earlier explanation, and for each interaction where applicable rules require renewed consent.

19. Questions, Complaints, and Copies

For booking, fee, connection, or provider-coordination concerns, email admin@nowexpress.ph. For privacy or consent-record concerns, email privacy@nowexpress.ph. For medicine or pharmacist concerns, email orders@nowexpress.ph. Include the booking or order reference, but do not send unnecessary health or payment information.

A clinical concern may also be raised with the provider, Professional Regulation Commission, Department of Health, or another authority with jurisdiction. A privacy concern may be filed with the National Privacy Commission. A consumer concern may be filed with the Department of Trade and Industry.

20. Your Rights Under Philippine Law

This policy is intended to work with the following Philippine laws, rules, and official guidance, as amended or replaced from time to time:

Nothing in this policy takes away a right or remedy that Philippine law gives you. If any part conflicts with a mandatory legal requirement, the legal requirement controls.