THE MASTERMIND 21

when looking for work, he naturally gravitated online. On a forum titled "Physicians Work From Home," he saw a posting for a role with a company called RX Limited.

When Tumpati replied to the posting, a company representative using the name "Aaron Johnson" laid out the job for him: Tum- pati would review medical questionnaires from patients who had ordered drugs on a website, and if warranted prescribe them the drugs they were requesting. Tumpati was familiar with the concept of "telemedicine," a burgeoning field in which medical practitio- ners used the Internet to interact with patients. RX Limited's model struck him as cutting edge, an extension of the remote medicine he was already practicing by reviewing test results. It also paid by the prescription: $2 for each one he issued.

Whatever misgivings Tumpati might have had about the pro- cess, representatives of RX Limited worked to assuage them, as- suring him that they had "over forty other physicians doing this, and that it is fully valid and legal," he said. "They assured me that they only deal with non-DEA controlled substances, and these pa- tients already have annual physical examinations with their own physicians." He signed up.

RX Limited sent him login credentials for a website where he could access the customer questionnaires and orders. He would examine a patient's responses, click a box to mark the order ac- cepted or rejected, and move on to the next. For a doctor, the work couldn't have been more simple. There were no waiting rooms full of patients to deal with, no insurance forms to fill out. Tumpati assumed that RX Limited's customers already had a diagnosis in hand and were just looking for affordable refills on medications they had been prescribed. "It appeared to me to be a perfect op- portunity not only serve a lot of patients," he said, "but also be able to do so in my free time."

It was also, it turned out, extremely lucrative for a part-time job. Soon he was making enough money not just to cover his ex- penses, but to save up to start his own practice. And more impor-