Expansion of Non-Face-to-Face Medical Services Starting with Respiratory Disease Patients

Designation of Local Clinics…Flexible Expansion Effect
Support for Medical Device R&D Costs

On the 14th, citizens are waiting for COVID-19 testing at the Walking Through screening clinic in Jungnang-gu Office, Seoul. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporters Junho Hwang, Daeyeol Choi] The government, aiming to expand non-face-to-face medical consultations, has decided to strengthen such consultations primarily focusing on respiratory patients. It plans to designate respiratory-specialized clinics mainly at the primary care clinic level.

Respiratory-specialized clinics are a medical system established in response to the spread of COVID-19, where patients exhibiting respiratory symptoms are grouped separately for treatment. The government expects that by designating these clinics as local clinics, non-face-to-face consultations will naturally expand. Alongside this, the government will also support research and development (R&D) costs for medical devices necessary for non-face-to-face consultations.

On the 16th, a senior official from the Ministry of Health and Welfare stated, "When designating respiratory-specialized clinics, we plan to focus on small and medium-sized medical institutions such as local clinics and equip them with various devices needed for non-face-to-face consultations to improve patient accessibility." Respiratory-specialized clinics refer to a medical system with separate pathways for diagnosing patients with symptoms such as fever, cough, or sore throat, first determining COVID-19 infection status. This concept was proposed mainly by medical organizations including the Korean Medical Association. The plan is to designate 1,000 clinics in total, with 500 designated through public health centers and 500 through applications from private medical institutions.

Non-face-to-face consultations have faced strong opposition from healthcare providers and civic groups, which has prevented active promotion by health authorities or political circles. The main arguments from opponents are concerns that patients would flock to large tertiary hospitals in the metropolitan area, which are highly preferred by patients, and that benefits might be monopolized by specific medical device companies. To address this, the government plans to involve mainly small and medium-sized medical institutions to persuade the opposition.

This approach seems to consider the positive response to telephone consultations, which have been allowed on a limited basis as part of non-face-to-face consultations, mainly at the primary care clinic level. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, from late February to the end of May, a total of 4,651 medical institutions participated in telephone consultations, resulting in 130,000 prescriptions. Among these, 3,461 were primary care clinics, accounting for 74%.

Notably, even after the Korean Medical Association advised its members to stop telephone consultations in mid-April, participation steadily increased. As of May 10, 3,853 medical institutions were participating in telephone consultations, an increase of about 800 institutions in three weeks, with most of the newly participating institutions after mid-May being primary care clinics.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.