Ohio IV therapy marketing that books the prescriber's exam before anyone mixes the bag

A doctor's name on the website is not enough in Ohio. The boards want a prescriber to meet each client, and your bios should show who that is.

The joint statement describes clinics that list a physician as medical director, on staff or available. Yet only a nurse or paramedic ever meets the client. The boards call that too little to form the patient relationship a prescribed drug needs.

Write the bios and the about page around the real visit:

• Name the examiner. Say which physician, PA or nurse practitioner sees new clients, and on which days.
• Match the paperwork. The statement says a nurse practitioner must add the IV clinic to the collaboration agreement first. A PA needs a signed supervision agreement with an Ohio physician.
• Describe the nurse's part honestly. The RN starts and watches the drip on the prescriber's order. The RN does not pick the drip or set the dose.

Staff wording matters as well. The statement notes that Ohio's EMS board has cleared medicated IV fluids for certified paramedics only. EMTs and advanced EMTs are not on that list. So a team page that says "our EMTs run your drip" describes work they may not do.

LPN wording needs the same care. Ohio's LPN IV law lets an LPN hang a vitamin or electrolyte bag only after an RN started that solution. The boards go further and say an LPN is not authorized to give IV solutions at a retail clinic. Keep LPNs out of drip copy unless counsel has cleared the role.

Most drip bags in Ohio are mixed under a rule for immediate use. It keeps the bag fresh and the prescriber close, and it limits what a mobile or event offer can promise.

Under the immediate-use compounding rule, a bag takes no more than three manufactured products and two entries into any one container. It is given within six hours of mixing or thrown away. Unless it is given within an hour, it is mixed in a clean area away from outside doors and foot traffic.

The boards add two limits in their joint statement. Mixing ahead of an order is not allowed. And a prescriber checks the finished bag before it is given, or is on site when a nurse checks it.

Picture a bachelorette weekend in a Columbus rental. Each guest needs her own exam and her own order. No bag can arrive premixed from the clinic. So the event page promises a video exam for each guest and a nurse who mixes on site. It never promises drips waiting when the guests walk in.

Hotel and home visits work the same way. Before an ad offers a drip in someone's living room, settle how the prescriber checks each bag and where the nurse mixes it. Then write the ad to match. None of this section is legal advice; confirm with counsel before the event page goes live.

Ohio's sales-call and consumer laws were written with storefronts and door-to-door sellers in mind. A drip business can land on either side of them, depending on where the drip happens and who sells it.

Start with phone sales. Ohio's telephone sales law exempts a retail business that provides its services at its own premises, if most of its retail sales happen there. A drip lounge usually fits. A mobile-only service, whose drips happen in homes and hotels, may not, in our reading.

Without an exemption, a seller has to register with the Attorney General before making sales calls. Settle which side you are on before a membership call campaign starts.

A second exemption suits a mobile service better. A call that only sets an appointment, with the sale made face to face later, is exempt under the same law. So script outbound calls to book a visit, and leave the package sale for the visit itself.

Referral offers come next. The Consumer Sales Practices Act bars a reward for passing along names of new customers if the client only earns it once a later sale goes through. "A free drip once your friend books" fits that description.

There is a twist. The Act's definitions leave out transactions between physicians and their patients. Whether a drip sold by a nurse-owned or investor-owned company is one of those is unclear. We plan as if the Act applies and let counsel decide how far to rely on the exclusion.