The government's push to widen home delivery of prescription drugs for telemedicine patients is deepening its conflict with pharmacist groups. With the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the lead ministry, taking a cautious stance on a full expansion and the Korean Pharmaceutical Association staging a street rally of some 10,000 people, concerns are growing that the policy could lose momentum.
The government is pushing to extend eligibility for receiving prescription drugs at home after a telemedicine consultation to all telemedicine patients, according to relevant ministries and the medical community on the 21st. Telemedicine is set to be formally institutionalized in December, but under the revised bill, home delivery of medicines would be allowed only for certain patients, including residents of islands and remote areas, long-term care beneficiaries, people with disabilities, and patients with infectious or rare diseases.
To address that limitation, the government plans to run a public-private consultative body, led by the Office for Government Policy Coordination, bringing together stakeholders such as pharmacist groups and telemedicine brokerage firms. But the Korean Pharmaceutical Association has refused to take part, leaving the discussions in trouble from the outset.
The association argues that expanding drug delivery would give preferential treatment to private platforms and could encourage misuse and overuse of medicines as well as doctor shopping. It also raises the possibility of a heavier burden on national health insurance finances. On the 20th, the association held a national pharmacists' rally to defend public health and health insurance in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, demanding that the government withdraw its plan to expand drug delivery. Organizers estimated attendance at about 10,000, including some 7,000 pharmacists and 3,000 pharmacy students.
Amid the continuing pushback, a gap in tone is also emerging between the Health Ministry and the Office for Government Policy Coordination and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, which are driving regulatory reform. The ministry's position is that extending drug delivery to all telemedicine patients would require further legal revision, making a full expansion difficult to carry out at the same time the system takes effect in December.
Within the Office for Government Policy Coordination and the SMEs ministry, there are concerns that the discussion on expanding drug delivery could lose momentum altogether if the Health Ministry leans toward the pharmacists' opposition. "The Health Ministry has not yet spoken publicly, but there is a strong chance it will soon begin pressing a position that takes the pharmacists' views into account," a senior government official said.
The telemedicine industry is proposing institutionalization built on safeguards, rather than an either-or choice between fully allowing and banning drug delivery. The Telemedicine Industry Council said on the same day that it "is not calling for drug delivery to be expanded unconditionally" and that it "agrees with the pharmacists' argument that sufficient safeguards must be put in place." It proposed opening discussions to set up medication counseling, identity verification, delivery tracking, quality control and accountability systems for accidents, and to spell out who can receive drugs at home and under what conditions.
