According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun, the ministry has pre-announced amendments to the Enforcement Rule of the Medical Service Act and a rule on administrative penalties for medical professionals, with comments accepted until the 9th of next month. Because the revised act taking effect on December 24 formalizes telemedicine, the ministry set the concrete consultation and prescription standards in advance.

First visits versus follow-ups, and where they can happen

Ordinary telemedicine is allowed for patients who had an in-person visit for the same symptoms at the same institution within the past six months. Even at the same institution, a different symptom or more than six months since the last in-person visit makes it a first visit.

A first-visit telemedicine consultation can in principle be held only with a clinic-level institution in the same province or city as the patient's registered address. Patients with rare diseases or type 1 diabetes, registered people with disabilities and long-term care recipients are exceptions and may use institutions in other regions, while patients needing follow-up after surgery or procedures can also use hospital-level institutions.

Prescription and volume limits, and platform oversight

In first-visit telemedicine, only medicines for up to seven days may in principle be prescribed. If a prior treatment and prescription history for the condition is confirmed and the clinician judges that existing treatment should continue, a single prescription of up to 30 days is possible. Narcotics, psychotropic drugs, medicines at risk of misuse and obesity drugs are in principle barred from remote prescription, with narcotics and psychotropics allowed only as an exception, for example for rare-disease patients meeting set conditions.

Volume caps are introduced as well. Each institution's telemedicine cases must stay within 30 percent of its in-person cases per half year, and per practitioner the monthly average over a half year is limited to 500 for doctors and 130 for dentists and Korean medicine doctors, with night and holiday consultations excluded. Video is the rule, and voice is allowed when audio alone can adequately convey the needed information.

Platform oversight is also tightened. Operators must report their operating methods, fees and privacy safeguards, and those with 100,000 or more cumulative users must apply for certification. A basis was also created to relax the standards temporarily when an epidemic or major disaster makes in-person care difficult. The Kyunghyang Shinmun report, however, did not confirm reactions from the medical community or patient groups.