The inconvenience of having to go around to multiple pharmacies to find medicine prescribed through telemedicine is expected to ease.
This is because the government is opening pharmacy-by-pharmacy information on which medicines they handle to private platforms such as DoctorNow, GoodDoc and MyDoctor for public convenience.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA) said on the 5th that starting on the 6th they will provide telemedicine platforms with information on whether pharmacies sell or dispense medicines prescribed through telemedicine.
Until now, telemedicine users have faced the inconvenience of having to call or visit multiple places because it was difficult to check whether nearby pharmacies carried the prescribed medicines after receiving a prescription.
For example, office worker A called five pharmacies near the company after using telemedicine for cold symptoms but could not get the prescribed medicine. In the end, A found the medicine at a pharmacy near home and was only able to take it seven hours after the consultation.
This measure is expected to resolve much of that inconvenience. Going forward, immediately after a telemedicine session ends, users can check "pharmacies near me that can dispense." This will allow them to visit the nearest pharmacy and receive the medicine right away.
The government will disclose data by pharmacy on whether purchase or dispensing occurred for medicines that have telemedicine prescription records within the past year.
The information will be provided via an open API, allowing platform operators to build user-tailored pharmacy guidance services. The measure reflects that pharmacies with a history of handling a specific medicine are more likely to actually have it in stock.
The government expects the data opening to reduce gaps in treatment caused by delays in dispensing or giving up on picking up medicine.
Medical Policy Director Gwak Sun-heon said, "By opening up data, we can significantly reduce public inconvenience in the process of using telemedicine," and added, "We will continue to support the stabilization of telemedicine and the improvement of access to care."