"Yoon Calls for 'Regulatory Reform'... Challenges Including Remote Medical Care and Delivery Robots Pile Up [Tech War, Birth of Advanced Nations]"

Remote Medical Consultations Surpass 5 Million Cases but Remain a 'Time-Limited Service'
Temporarily Allowed Due to COVID-19... Could Become Illegal as Early as Next Month
Legal Revisions Still Uncertain Amid Strong Medical Community Opposition
Delivery Robots Face Similar Challenges with Numerous Legal Obstacles

Remote medical consultation solution for hospitals launched by LG Electronics.
[Photo by Asia Economy DB]

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Lee Jun-hyung] As President Yoon Seok-yeol has launched a Regulatory Innovation Strategy Meeting and vowed to personally chair it to drive regulatory reform, there are calls from frontline companies to swiftly implement detailed regulatory reforms at the right timing. There are concerns that if the focus is only on a big-picture approach like the ‘massive regulatory reforms’ pursued by previous administrations, this effort may also fail to make significant progress.

Remote medical care, temporarily permitted due to COVID-19, is a representative example. Although the cumulative number of remote medical consultations recently surpassed 5 million, the service is still considered a ‘time-limited service’ that could become illegal at any moment. The delivery robot industry, expected to form a 50 trillion won market in 10 years, is another area urgently needing regulatory reform.

According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare on the 16th, as of the 6th of this month, the cumulative number of remote medical consultations was approximately 5.12 million. The cumulative number exceeded 3 million last October and approached 4 million in March this year. Nearly 1 million remote consultations have been conducted in just the past two months this year. Remote medical care has been steadily established since its full-scale introduction in February 2020, at the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The related industry has also grown rapidly over the past two years. Before 2020, the domestic remote medical care ecosystem was virtually barren, as remote medical care was defined as an illegal service before the COVID-19 outbreak. However, when the government temporarily lifted restrictions on remote medical care to respond to COVID-19, companies providing related services began to emerge one after another.

Looking at the remote medical platform DoctorNow alone, the growth of the related industry can be confirmed. DoctorNow recently secured Series B investment, recognizing a corporate value of 200 billion won. This achievement was made in just one and a half years since the first service was launched in December 2020. This indicates that the capital market highly values the added value of remote medical services.

The problem is that remote medical care is a time-limited service. Under the current Medical Service Act, remote medical care is basically illegal. It is only permitted when the national crisis alert level for COVID-19 is at the ‘serious’ stage. If the alert level drops to the ‘caution’ stage, just before ‘serious,’ the service becomes illegal. This is why remote medical care providers have been facing a ‘shutdown’ threat since the government lifted social distancing measures.

In response, the Yoon Seok-yeol administration has selected the institutionalization of remote medical care as a national agenda, but discussions on revising the law remain unclear. The government plans to promote institutionalization through consultations between the medical community and the government, but it is not easy to gain cooperation from the medical sector. The ‘Non-face-to-face Medical Care Consultative Body (tentative name),’ which the government planned to launch as part of these consultations, has failed to gain momentum due to opposition from some groups, including the Korean Medical Association.

The outdoor delivery robot 'Dilly Drive' developed by Woowa Brothers, the operator of Baedal Minjok. [Photo by Woowa Brothers]

The delivery robot industry, which has rapidly grown since COVID-19, faces a similar situation. In Korea, pilot services can only be operated in certain areas through regulatory sandboxes that temporarily exempt or defer existing regulations. However, the regulatory sandbox period is limited to two years, and there are legal obstacles to overcome, such as the Road Traffic Act, which lacks regulations on robots. This contrasts with advanced countries like the United States, where delivery robot services have already been commercialized one after another.

Professor Sung Tae-yoon of Yonsei University’s Department of Economics said, "Due to inflation and other factors, the costs borne by companies have greatly increased. Regulatory reform is useful in reducing corporate costs to cope with inflation and can also become a long-term growth engine."

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