Reviewed by최연승대표원장
I live in Gunsan. Can I receive a non-face-to-face consultation for a Korean medicine diet program?
It depends. Initial consultations must be in person because the Korean medicine doctor needs to examine your pulse, complexion, and tongue to assess your condition accurately. However, if you have previously visited, remote follow-up consultations for herbal prescriptions are possible. Not all medications qualify, and in-person visits may still be required depending on your condition.
This is a common question. I also initially wondered whether non-face-to-face consultations were possible for diet treatment at Korean medicine clinics. The short answer is that it is conditionally possible. For the Korean medicine doctor to properly evaluate the patient's constitution and condition, in-person consultation is essential. Particularly in cases such as Spleen Deficiency (脾虛, biheo) or Phlegm-Fluid (痰飮, dameum), pulse diagnosis (脈診, maekjin) and tongue diagnosis (舌診, seoljin) provide critical clues that are difficult to fully replace remotely. Therefore, the first consultation must be conducted in person. However, once the initial diagnosis is made, remote follow-up consultations are possible. For example, if you live in Gunsan and find traveling to Seoul's Baengnokdam burdensome, you can come for the first visit to assess your condition, and subsequent adjustments to herbal formulas or dosage can be managed via phone or video consultation. That said, if there are changes in symptoms or potential side effects, you must switch to an in-person visit immediately. The remote prescription process works as follows: after an initial in-person consultation, you receive herbal medicine. After taking it for a certain period, you have a remote follow-up, during which you send a checklist or simple photos (e.g., tongue condition) to help adjust the prescription. The herbal medicine can then be delivered by courier. However, due to medical regulations, remote consultations are not entirely unrestricted, so please understand that in-person visits may sometimes be unavoidable.