▲ Telehealth (File Photo)
Patients seeking telehealth services for the "first time" will now be required to use primary care clinics located within the same city or province as their residential address.
While the prescription period for initial telehealth consultations is limited to a maximum of 7 days in principle, doctors will be allowed to extend it up to 30 days once, based on their clinical judgment.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced today (October 18) that it is legislative-pre-announcing a partial amendment enforcement ordinance to the Medical Service Act, which details target patients and medication prescription criteria for telehealth.
The enforcement ordinance amendment divides telehealth into "general" and "initial" categories, specifying target patients and implementation standards for each.
In principle, telehealth services are to be conducted at primary care clinics.
Hospital-level medical institutions are restricted to unavoidable circumstances, such as for rare disease patients or those requiring post-operative monitoring.
According to the amendment, general telehealth can be provided to patients who have received in-person treatment at the respective medical institution for the same symptoms within the past 6 months.
For initial telehealth consultations, even if the in-person treatment history is not met, they can be conducted if the patient's resident registration address and the location of the medical institution are in the same city or province.
If a patient has registered their actual place of residence in the telehealth support system, that actual residence will serve as the standard.
Patients with rare diseases, Type 1 diabetes (also known as pediatric diabetes), and registered individuals with disabilities will be able to receive initial telehealth consultations even from medical institutions outside their residential city or province.
The prescription period for medications during initial telehealth consultations has been restricted to within 7 days.
However, if the medical history and prescription records for the relevant disease are verified and the doctor determines that it is necessary to continue the existing treatment, medications can be prescribed for up to 30 days, limited to one time.
In addition, the prescription of narcotics, psychotropic medications, substances prone to abuse or misuse, and anti-obesity drugs will be prohibited in principle during telehealth consultations.
The amendment also includes mechanisms to prevent medical institutions dedicated "exclusively" to telehealth.
The number of telehealth cases for medical institutions will be based on a 6-month period, capped at within 30% of total treatments per half-year.
The monthly average number of telehealth cases per medical personnel per half-year has been set at no more than 500 for physicians, and 130 for dentists and traditional Korean medicine doctors.
Nighttime and holiday treatments will be excluded from this calculation.
Furthermore, medical personnel are required to verify the patient's identity prior to telehealth consultations.
While video systems must be used in principle, voice systems may also be used if visual information is not essential and information necessary for the diagnosis can be heard solely through audio.
Medications prescribed via telehealth can be delivered from pharmacies located in the city, county, or district where the patient resides.
Provisions banning patient-attracting acts such as free medication supply and rebates are also included in the amendment.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to pursue supplementary legislation under the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act to prevent the establishment of pharmacies exclusively dedicated to filling telehealth prescriptions.
Reporting and certification standards for platform companies mediating telehealth have also been established.
Telehealth intermediary companies must report matters concerning their name, operating methods, usage fees, and measures to secure information security.
Intermediaries with a cumulative subscriber count of 100,000 or more are mandatorily required to apply for certification.
The legislative pre-announcement period for the Medical Service Act enforcement ordinance amendment runs from October 19 to November 9.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to finalize the amendment after broadly gathering external opinions during this period.
Additionally, the Ministry has prepared an enforcement decree amendment to the Medical Service Act aimed at temporarily easing telehealth standards when in-person medical care becomes exceptionally difficult due to the spread of infectious diseases.
Opinions on the Medical Service Act enforcement decree amendment will be gathered until November 2.
(Photo provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Yonhap News)
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