Should patients who are being treated for sexually-transmitted diseases be prescribed extra antibiotics for their sexual partners?  Doctors routinely recommend that all partners within the past 60 days of their patients with a sexually transmitted disease be examined and treated.  But, many partners are reluctant to see a doctor.  As a result, there is a growing practice among doctors to prescribe for one’s patients and their partners, sight unseen. 

There are some legal concerns about this practice. Yet, California, Tennessee, and Washington allow this to occur for Chlamydia treatment. The American Medical Association supports this practice in states that allow it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to make recommendations on this in the near future. 

One caution is that malpractice insurance may not cover physicians who prescribe for someone whom they have never examined.  

(Prescriber’s Letter; 2005; 12(4):20-21.)     -- H.T.