Four telemedicine platforms fold, one month into Korea’s pilot program

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Just one month into a non-face-to-face medical pilot program in South Korea, there has been a significant drop in remote medical consultations and four related platform companies have either suspended their operations or closed down.

This is because, industry insiders said, added conditions, such as limiting telemedicine to follow-up visits and prohibiting the delivery of medicines, made it more inconvenient than the non-face-to-face care provided during the pandemic and causing a surge in people avoiding the service itself. There are growing concerns that if this trend continues, the government’s initial goal of promoting telemedicine may not take hold.

According to industry sources on Monday, since the pilot program began on June 1, four of the 30 domestic platform companies - Sir’s, FADOC, Baropill and Chekit - have suspended or closed their operations. Other companies such as thebestdoc and MO are also planning to terminate their services soon.

Industry insiders attributed the decline in the number of users to the fact that the service is limited to follow-up visits and that prescription drugs can only be picked up by going to a pharmacy where they can be dispensed.

In fact, Goodoc experienced a drop of about 95 percent in the average daily number of non-face-to-face consultations in July compared to May. During the same period, Doctor Now also saw a 26.8 percent decrease in the number of consultations.

In May, an average of over 5,000 consultations were conducted daily, but this month, it has dropped to around 3,600. As a result, the cancellation rate of medical appointments has noticeably increased. Not only are patients skeptical about non-face-to-face consultation services, but hospitals are also reluctant to use telemedicine, resulting in a significant drop in the overall number of remote consultations.

According to Doctor Now, the average appointment cancellation rate this month stands at 38.3 percent, more than three times higher than 11 percent in May. For My Doctor, the rate of failure to connect to an actual consultation has increased by about twofold during the same period. Specifically, the refusal rate for patients with colds increased to 30 percent in July from 10 percent in May, and for patients with chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes to 40 percent in July from 18 percent in May.

“The government seems to be attaching significance to the fact that non-face-to-face medical treatment, which has only been discussed for 30 years, has led to a pilot project, but the industry is worried that if the situation continues like this, all platform companies may close down and the market itself may disappear altogether,” said an industry insider.