대면진료와 원격의료의 관계에 관한 법적 고찰

In the medical community, along with the issue of privatization of medical services, another issue at the heart of controversy in 2013 was the ‘remote medical treatments’. The Ministry of Health and Welfare had proposed expansion of remote medical treatments through pre-announcement of legislation and proposal of amendments thereafter. However, in 2013, the relationship between in-person and remote medical treatments came into the spotlight after the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court had conflicting interpretation of the Medical Service Act, Article 17, Section 1 for a case where a medical doctor issued prescription after consulting a patient via telephone rather than in-person. After the Supreme Court failed to draw a clear line as to whether a telephone medical treatment constitutes an in-person or a remote treatment in a subsequent case, such dubious attitude of the Supreme Court had cast doubt on determining the scope and necessity of remote treatments. Starting from this problem, we will (1) examine the concept of in-person and remote medical treatments, (2) the regulations of in-person and remote medical treatments in the current Medical Service Act and the amendments contained in the recently announced legislation proposals. Furthermore, we will (3) compare and contrast the analysis of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court with respect to in-person and remote medical treatments, and (4) establish relationship between in-person and remote treatments in line with the amendments of the Medical Service Act and propose the necessary scope of remote medical treatments from the view of legal policy.