The article points to Eli Lilly's LillyDirect platform as an example of the trend. The service lets Australian patients upload an electronic prescription for Mounjaro, the brand name for tirzepatide, and have the drug delivered directly. Eli Lilly says the model improves affordability and convenience. Doctors and pharmacists cited in the piece counter that it severs the link between prescribing, dispensing and clinical monitoring, leaving no single provider responsible for tracking how a patient is doing on the drug.

That separation, the article argues, is part of a broader pattern of fragmented care. GPs are often left to manage side effects or drug interactions for treatments started by online providers or private clinics they have no visibility into. Medicinal cannabis access is cited as a case showing particularly rapid growth, especially for mental health and chronic pain, often through channels outside a patient's regular GP.

The article says patient demand for these treatments frequently outpaces the evidence supporting them, raising risks around safety monitoring, drug interactions and whether a given treatment suits a particular patient. It also notes that commercial interests can create financial incentives to prescribe certain drugs, and that wider access does not mean equitable access, since many of these treatments are privately funded and out of reach for patients who can't pay.

Hallinan argues that patient advocacy has a place in this shift but should not substitute for evidence-based safety monitoring. The article calls for better use of GP electronic medical records to track patient outcomes across these treatments; one version of the piece also proposes using those records to connect patients to clinical trials. It concludes that innovation in access to these drugs and therapies needs to keep pace with the systems and evidence built to protect the patients using them.