The Moon Jae-in administration may withdraw a plan to allow telemedicine between doctors and patients as sought by its predecessor, government and business officials say.

The bill on telemedicine failed to pass the National Assembly even with the strong support of the Park Geun-hye administration. The new administration is not considering expanding telemedicine to the one made by doctors and patients, they say.

It is realistically difficult for the Ministry of Health and Welfare_{보건복지부}(MOHW) to push for the policy opposed by the new government. This may explain why the ministry didn’t report the matter at a recent meeting of the presidential commission on national planning and advice, a transition team of sorts. Many industry watchers also say the ministry has all but given up.

What should be the ministry’s next option if it cancels the expansion of the doctor-patient telemedicine, then? Many experts say it would have no other choices but to expand it in remote, medically vulnerable areas.

That may also prove to be difficult, critics say, because the local medical community, including Korean Medical Association_{대한의사협회}(KMA), is not withdrawing a suspicious glance, even after it became known the ministry did not include the issue in its report to the transition team.

The association, while saying the turnaround of the ministry is natural, has yet to remain complacent. “We can never permit the expansion of telemedicine to between doctors and patients,” an association official said, “We can hardly stay satisfied, however, even if the National Assembly votes down the related bill.”

“This is because the proponents of telemedicine, including the ministry, could still push for its expansion in remote and vulnerable regions, based on which they will make a renewed attempt to expand it to between doctors and patients,” the official said. “(As far as telemedicine is concerned), we can ill afford to loosen up.”

The Assembly’s Health and Welfare Committee deliberated the revision of the medical law, including the expansion of the telemedicine, in its meeting in late March, the last one before the presidential election, but couldn’t reach a conclusion. The ministry had done its best to enact the law by, for instance, modifying telemedicine to “medical care making the most of the information-communication technology,” before the snap election but the committee did not even discuss the revision.

An official at the ministry said at the time, “We took the first step for discussion,” expressing some expectations. But skeptics said the inauguration of the Moon administration might mean it might have been the last debate on the issue.