Kim Jin-woo, a 27-year-old resident of Seoul battling COVID-19 and recovering at home under a new government policy, needed to see a doctor when his symptoms did not improve, but the nearest designated hospital was fully booked. So, he picked up his phone.

Like Kim, many in South Korea have turned to telemedicine amid record-high Omicron cases in recent weeks, as access to in-person options became limited after authorities said they would only provide care to COVID-19 patients aged 60 and above and prescribed home care for those with mild symptoms.

While telemedicine is technically illegal in South Korea and has only been allowed under emergency COVID-19 measures since 2020, the increase in users and support from president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol, who sees it as an "inevitable reality", suggest it may remain part of the country’s healthcare system.

"It was really convenient to get treatment via a phone call and have drugs delivered through a single process. I wish this can be expanded even after COVID ends," said Kim. "Making a trip to the hospital can be burdensome when you're ill."

The closest designated hospital for COVID-19 home care patients Kim can go to is an hour away by foot, but it only provides treatment on Mondays and Tuesdays and is currently fully booked for the week.

A total of 2 million people are under COVID-19 home care in the country. While South Korea averages two doctors per 1,000 people, only six of its 17 cities and provinces meet this average, showing how health care is thinner in many parts of the country.

This gap in conventional in-person services has driven up business for local telemedicine players like Doctor Now, Ollacare, Soldoc and Dr. Call, which help connect hospitals to patients located tens and even hundreds of kilometers away.

Doctor Now, a SoftBank Ventures-backed start-up, said it had seen a surge in users, mostly in their 20s and 30s, with COVID-19 consultations now making up above half of total cases.

Out of a cumulative 2.3 million users since December 2020, nearly 1 million patients had signed up for treatment in February this year, a 40-fold jump from a year earlier.

Other players have also seen a pickup in user demand.

But telemedicine providers are few in South Korea, leading to long virtual queues. Kim, for example, had to wait 3 hours for a phone call from a doctor.

"Although I had to wait hours in the virtual queue, still that's better than not being able to receive any treatment [...] and I've got tons of work to do, which means I still wouldn't have made it to the hospital," Kim told Reuters.

Yoon backs telemedicine

President-elect Yoon, who takes office in May, has vowed to "make sure all Korean citizens can enjoy telemedicine", fueling hope that the practice may become a permanent part of South Korea's US$203 billion health industry.

For now, telemedicine is in its infancy, providing only about 58 billion won ($48 million) in treatments over the past two years, health ministry data show.

In North America, a global frontrunner in the industry, the telemedicine market stood at $57.26 billion in 2020 alone, according to data from Fortune Business Insights. It expected the global telemedicine market to reach around $264 billion by 2028 from around $127 billion in 2020.

For decades, the Korean Medical Association has opposed telemedicine on worries over misdiagnosis and drug misuse.

But the medical community is gradually embracing the trend, given the evidence that telemedicine can help reduce medical service gaps between urban and rural areas.

"At first, I thought it would be a bit awkward and difficult [...] but it turns out to be more satisfying to both the doctor and the patient," said Han Jae-hyuk, a pediatrician at the Bareun Yonsei Clinic in Seoul.

"Telemedicine is essential in many ways, especially for those who are not in a position to visit hospitals or need to get a prescription refilled for chronic diseases."

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