Korean Telemedicine Industry Council Opposes Prescription Day Caps

What the council wants changed

The council called the rule limiting a 30-day exceptional prescription to once per lifetime unrealistic. Without public infrastructure to check a patient's exceptional prescription history across institutions, it argues, the limit would force manual checks by clinics, proof documents from patients and separate systems at platforms. Instead, it proposes dropping the count limit, allowing up to 90 days based on a review of treatment and prescription history and the doctor's professional judgment, and requiring the reasoning for continued treatment to be recorded in the medical chart.

It also urged scrapping the cap of 500 telemedicine consultations per month on average per doctor, measured half-yearly, saying the parent law gives no authority for it. On the public support system, the council said the government should focus on public infrastructure such as eligibility and prescription history checks, rather than duplicating brokerage functions private platforms already perform, and should give private intermediaries a legal basis to query that data.

On regional limits, it wants rules to reflect workplaces and schools rather than only registered residence, broader exceptions for islands, remote areas, nights and holidays, and medication delivery areas aligned with the same living-area standard.

Public opposition

Patients also weighed in. By the November 9 deadline of the comment period, 110,000 telemedicine users had signed a petition against the uniform prescription-day limit. The council plans to compile the signatures, deliver them to the ministry and keep urging a system design that reflects real demand.

The co-chairs said safety depends on systematic checks of consultation and prescription history and on records of medical judgment, not on mechanically blocking prescription days and regions. They added that the public system should support the reliability of private infrastructure rather than compete with it.