First Weekend of Telemedicine Expansion Brings Patient Inconvenience... Difficult Pharmacy Access and Continued Medical Community Opposition

Number of Requests for Non-Face-to-Face Medical Consultations Soars
Patient Inconvenience Persists Due to Medical Community Boycott
Especially Many Complaints Related to Pharmacies

Non-face-to-face Medical Consultation

The use of non-face-to-face medical consultation services has significantly increased as these services have been greatly expanded. Since the 15th, a pilot project has been improved to allow non-face-to-face consultations at medical institutions that patients have never visited before during vulnerable medical hours such as holidays and nighttime. Originally, the pilot project only allowed initial consultations within a narrow scope, such as residents of islands and mountainous areas and people with disabilities, which led to criticism that the purpose of non-face-to-face consultations was not being fulfilled.

According to DoctorNow, a non-face-to-face medical consultation platform, the number of non-face-to-face consultation requests during the first weekend of the expansion, on the 16th and 17th, was about 4,000 cases. This is more than 20 times the average daily request number (190 cases) from the 3rd to the 9th of this month. Another platform, NamanuiDoctor, also received about 2,000 requests during the same period.

However, patient inconvenience due to the medical community's boycott has been significant. There are not many pharmacies operating on weekends, drug delivery is still prohibited, and some pharmacists are known to refuse prescriptions issued through non-face-to-face consultations.

A man in his 20s living in Gyeonggi-do, Mr. Park, said, "I received a prescription through a non-face-to-face consultation at an otolaryngology clinic in Seoul due to flu-like symptoms on the weekend, then called a nearby pharmacy, but when I mentioned the non-face-to-face consultation, the pharmacist said 'We're out of medicine' and hung up."

Seon Jaewon, CEO of NamanuiDoctor, said, "Among the 40 to 50 non-face-to-face consultations completed on weekends, patients experienced inconvenience because pharmacists refused to dispense medication," adding, "If patients call pharmacies 5 to 6 times and get rejected, it can be very frustrating from the platform's perspective." According to the Remote Medical Industry Council, since the expansion, a total of 34 complaints have been received through the pilot project inconvenience reporting center, most of which were related to medication dispensing issues.

Opposition from medical associations remains strong. Medical associations such as the Korean Internal Medicine Association and the Korean Otolaryngology Association have expressed concerns about the expansion plan for non-face-to-face consultations. The Korean Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology even urged its members not to participate in non-face-to-face medical services. An industry insider from a non-face-to-face medical platform said, "The number of doctors registered for non-face-to-face consultations has remained similar or slightly increased since the expansion," but added, "The associations encouraging their members to leave platform companies could be a variable." The Ministry of Health and Welfare stated that if a specific group induces medical institutions to refuse participation in non-face-to-face consultations, it could be a violation of the Fair Trade Act.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare holds the position that there are no safety issues because the expansion of non-face-to-face consultations has introduced a 'right to refuse consultation' for doctors when accurate diagnosis is difficult, and drug delivery remains prohibited. They also judged that no major side effects were observed during the temporary allowance of non-face-to-face consultations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the rapid growth of the global non-face-to-face medical consultation market, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. The Korea Labor Institute forecasted on the 18th that if non-face-to-face consultations are greatly expanded, employment in the health industry will increase by more than 1.5 million over the next five years.