Hong Kong’s private telehealth services are lacking transparency and guidance, the city’s consumer watchdog has found, calling on authorities to offer detailed guidelines and for the industry to specify qualified service providers.
The Consumer Council released findings on Tuesday of a study that reviewed problems with the city’s telemedicine services, which have gained traction since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The state of the telehealth market in Hong Kong is at the beginning stage,” said council chairman Clement Chan Kam-wing.
“Our public health sector, we are up there [on par] with the rest of the other jurisdictions … But in the private sector, at the moment, I think the guidelines are only covering the Chinese and Western medical practitioners [but not platform operators].”
He said guidelines were lacking for telehealth platforms operated by insurance companies and non-medical business operators providing access to doctors.
The council’s findings were derived from surveys conducted among 840 consumers, 833 Western and Chinese medical practitioners and 14 business providers last year, as well as online research, enquiry and review of the complaint cases.
