KMA ‘non-face-to-face Wegovy prescriptions cause harm'

The Korean Medical Association says, “Indiscriminate Prescription of Wegovy at non-face-to-face medical platforms causes serious harm”

A Korean doctor's association has called for an immediate halt to the government's plan to allow non-face-to-face medical treatment.

 

The Korean Medical Association (Chairman Hyun-Taek Lim) issued a statement on the 28th claiming, “The government should immediately stop allowing all non-face-to-face medical treatment as its pilot project and ensure that the non-face-to-face treatment pilot project is operated only as a supplementary means for returning patients, under the principle of face-to-face treatment.” The Ministry of Health and Welfare implemented a pilot project for non-face-to-face treatment in June last year, focusing on clinic-level medical institutions and returning patients who have received face-to-face medical treatment, and then allowed overall non-face-to-face treatment as a pilot project in February this year.

 

In response, the Korean Medical Association pointed out, “With the full permit of non-face-to-face treatment, online platforms are encouraging patients to use non-face-to-face treatment platforms through various advertisements, SNS, influencers, and other promotional activities.

 

Rather than providing essential medical treatment services for returning patients that have received face-to-face treatment, patients are being seriously induced to receive non-reimbursed initial medical treatment related to beauty such as hair loss, diet, and acne through online medical platforms.” “In the case of Wegovy, an injectable obesity drug that has been controversially overprescribed through non-face-to-face online platforms, the manufacturer suggests gallstones, hair loss, and indigestion as common side effects, and in rare cases, fatal side effects such as pancreatitis can occur, so it is a specialty drug that should be prescribed through BMI criteria.

 

However, due to the full allowance of non-face-to-face medical treatment, consumers, not patients, can easily acquire and abuse specialty drugs, and we would like to question whether this is in line to allow non-face-to-face treatment,’ said KMA.

 

  It added, “To prevent the distortion of the medical market and indiscriminate prescriptions caused by non-face-to-face treatment and the damage to public health, we need to restrict prescription of non-face-to-face treatment for drugs that should be prescribed after strictly identifying the patient's condition.

 

As such, the government should strengthen the monitoring system for online platform companies and prepare measures against factors that may disrupt the medical market.”