Reviewed by최연승대표원장
I live in Gwangmyeong. Can I get a prescription for diet herbal medicine through non-face-to-face consultation? I'm curious about how it works without an in-person visit.
Non-face-to-face prescription is possible, but there are clear pros and cons. The advantage is that you can receive treatment regardless of time and place. The disadvantage is that direct examinations like pulse diagnosis (脈診) and abdominal diagnosis (腹診) are difficult, so precise customization may be challenging. We recommend an in-person visit for the first consultation, and from follow-ups onward, many combine non-face-to-face methods.
Many people are curious about non-face-to-face herbal medicine prescriptions. From the perspective of a Korean medicine clinic, telemedicine has increased since COVID-19, and our Baekrokdam Korean Medicine Clinic also offers some non-face-to-face consultations. However, diet herbal medicine is not simply about weight control. It is important to determine the pattern differentiation (辨證, byeonjeung) in Korean medicine — whether the patient has Spleen Deficiency (脾虛, biheo), a constitution with excess Damp-Phlegm (濕痰, seupdam), or accompanying Blood Stasis (瘀血, eohyeol), etc. In this process, pulse diagnosis (脈診, maekjin) and abdominal diagnosis (腹診, bokjin) — feeling the pulse and pressing the abdomen — are very helpful, but these are inevitably omitted in non-face-to-face consultations. On the other hand, there are clear advantages. Office workers or those who live far away can save travel time and transportation costs, and follow-up patients who only need medication adjustments can conveniently consult via video call. We strongly recommend that new patients visit in person at least once; afterward, we operate by checking symptom and constitution changes through video calls and adjusting prescriptions accordingly. Ultimately, it is accurate to say that it depends on the situation. For mild constitution improvement or maintenance, non-face-to-face alone may suffice. However, for initial treatment or complex issues (e.g., accompanying menstrual irregularities, chronic fatigue, or digestive disorders), an in-person examination is safer. I was initially skeptical about non-face-to-face treatment, but after considering patient convenience, I concluded that it is better to use what is available effectively. It would be ideal to appropriately combine both methods as needed.