Telemedicine is a licensed category of healthcare in Singapore, and the rules governing it are published, specific and unusually quotable. A provider consulting you by video holds an Outpatient Medical Service licence under the Healthcare Services Act 2020 (MOH 2024), must see a first-time patient by real-time two-way video, and may not prescribe on the strength of a filled-in questionnaire (OMS Regulations). Singapore's regulators have also written about this medicine class directly: a joint circular names GLP-1 injections among the medicines a telemedicine licensee's own written protocol must address (Circular 87/2024). This article sets out each instrument, what it requires, and what the evidence does and does not say about remote weight-management care.
Outpatient Medical Service licence: the licence under the Healthcare Services Act 2020 that a medical clinic holds. Telemedicine runs on that same licence, with a specific approval to provide the service by remote provision.
Which documents actually govern a telehealth consultation
Five, and each does a different job. Knowing which is which makes the rest of this article — and any provider's answers — easier to read.
The Healthcare Services Act 2020 is the statute. It licenses healthcare services, and it replaced the older Private Hospitals and Medical Clinics Act. Under it, telemedicine amounts to the remote provision of an Outpatient Medical Service (MOH 2024).
The Healthcare Services (Outpatient Medical Service) Regulations 2023 are the subsidiary legislation that sets out what a licensee must do. This is where the concrete duties live: identity and location checks, real-time video for a first-time patient, written guidelines on who is suited to remote care, and alternative arrangements where a physical examination is needed (OMS Regulations).
Joint Circular 87/2024, issued by MOH, HSA and the Singapore Medical Council in November 2024, is the regulators' working guidance. It restates the statutory position in plainer language and adds expectations about medicines, consultations and advertising (Circular 87/2024).
The SMC's Ethical Code and Ethical Guidelines bind the doctor rather than the clinic. They set what a practitioner must have before offering an opinion, and what standard telemedicine has to meet (SMC).
The 2015 National Telemedicine Guidelines predate the licensing regime and remain listed on MOH's professionals portal. They are a quality-and-governance framework rather than a prescribing rulebook, and the statutory regime now runs through the Act and its regulations (MOH 2015).
One further point about who holds the licence. MOH told Parliament in March 2026 that "All telemedicine service providers need to have doctors as licensed holders", and that patients must be counselled on the proper use of dispensed medications regardless of care setting (MOH 2026).
What the regulators have said about GLP-1 medication specifically
They named it, and the naming is read backwards more often than not.
Joint Circular 87/2024 requires a licensee's own guidelines to address the types of medication that should not be prescribed by telemedicine, either at all or in certain scenarios. Among its examples are "medications requiring the patients to be first taught to be proficient in its use (such as bronchodilators in asthma or insulin or GLP-1 injections)" (Circular 87/2024).
Read precisely, that places a duty on the provider to have thought through, and written down, when remote prescribing of such a medicine is and is not appropriate. It does not prohibit prescribing GLP-1 medication by telemedicine, and any statement that it does misdescribes a live regulatory document. Equally, it is worth taking at face value: a regulator has put this class in the same sentence as inhalers and insulin because the patient has to be taught to use it. The category needs teaching, and the circular says so.
The prescription-only position underneath all of this comes from a different place again. MOH has stated in Parliament that GLP-1 medicines "can only be dispensed by a registered medical practitioner or a licensed retail pharmacy to a patient with a valid prescription" (MOH 2024). Which products are registered here, and what the prescription-only classification obliges, is covered in GLP-1 medication in Singapore: what is legal and licensed.
Why the first consultation is on video
The regulations say so, in terms, and the wording leaves little room.
A licensee "must not provide an outpatient medical service by remote provision to a first-time patient" unless the service is provided "through real-time 2-way interactive audiovisual communications" — with a first-time patient defined as one who has not previously received a service from that licensee (OMS Regulations).
The joint circular puts the same requirement in working language and adds the boundary that matters most: "A real-time video consultation is conducted for first-time patients to first establish the doctor-patient relationship", "Teleconsultations must not be provided solely by way of self-service, text-only questions", and medicines are not to be prescribed "just by getting a patient to fill-up a questionnaire" (Circular 87/2024).
Two duties sit alongside it. Before any service is provided remotely, the licensee must ascertain the patient's identity, contact information and location. And the licensee must hold written guidelines on which patients are suited to remote provision at all, taking into account the patient's medical condition and history, the qualifications and competence of the practitioner, and the patient's own ability to receive care this way (OMS Regulations).
That last one is worth noticing, because it is a rule about selection. The framework expects a provider to have decided in advance which patients it can properly look after remotely, and to have written that decision down.
What the framework asks of the doctor, not just the clinic
A separate layer, and it applies to the individual practitioner.
The SMC's ethical guidelines require that "You must ensure that you have sufficient information about your patients, derived from good history-taking, adequate clinical examination and other relevant investigations or information sources, before you offer any opinion, make management plans or offer treatment" (SMC).
On telemedicine, the code is direct rather than promotional. It says telemedicine "can improve patient access to medical care", and in the same breath that "it is not equal to conventional in-person care and has to be provided in a responsible manner". A doctor engaging in telemedicine "must endeavour to provide the same quality and standard of care as in-person medical care" and otherwise "must state the limitations" of their opinion. Patients must be given enough information about telemedicine, including its limitations in their own circumstances, to consent to it (SMC).
Our own regulator saying the two modes are not equal is a useful thing for a reader to know, and it is the reason the next section exists.
Where remote care stops
At the point where something needs a room, and the framework says what happens then.
Where a practitioner is of the opinion that a patient requires treatment, care or a physical examination that cannot be carried out by remote provision, the licensee must make alternative arrangements for the patient to receive it, and must inform the patient (OMS Regulations). Singapore's older national guidance points the same way: a face-to-face evaluation, where reasonably practical, should be done before or very soon after telemedicine treatment begins, and telemedicine may be the exclusive mode where face-to-face is not reasonably practical (MOH 2015).
For a patient, that step is a normal part of how the framework is meant to work. If the doctor wants a physical examination before starting, it usually means some further checks at a physical clinic are worth doing first, so that treatment can begin safely — and it does not mean GLP-1 medication is off the table. What the consultation itself covers is described in what happens at a GLP-1 video consultation.
What the evidence shows about remote weight management
Less than most people assume, in either direction.
No randomised comparison of telemedicine against in-person care for weight management has been published. The only comparative dataset located is a retrospective chart review at a single US academic centre, in which median six-month weight change across in-person, hybrid and video-only groups did not differ significantly — and whose own authors conclude that "More investigation is required to compare telemedicine models with in-person care" (Tchang 2022). The study is retrospective, single-centre and non-randomised, and over half the eligible charts did not reach the six-month analysis.
So nobody has shown that remote care works as well as in-person care for weight management, and nobody has shown that it works less well. That comparison, and what each route is actually set up to do, is covered in telehealth, your GP or a specialist.
Checking a provider against all this
Most of the above is verifiable before you pay anything.
MOH publishes a watchlist of enforcement actions against healthcare institutions and practitioners, and directs the public to named registers — the HealthHub directory of licensed services and the Singapore Medical Council register of doctors — to check whether a service is licensed and a practitioner registered (MOH). Whether a real-time video consultation happens on a first visit is something you can simply ask. So is whether the provider holds a written protocol for prescribing this medicine class remotely, which the circular requires it to have.
Those checks, and where each record lives, are set out in how to check a weight-loss provider is properly licensed.
At GetLean, our philosophy is that the medication is the catalyst and what you keep is the result. The rules above set the floor every licensee works to. What a provider does above that floor — about muscle, about protein and training, about the plan for coming off — is the part worth asking about, and no register records it.
This article describes the regulatory position as verified against primary sources in August 2026. Regulation changes; check the current position before acting on anything here, and speak to a doctor about your own treatment.
Common questions
Which rules govern telemedicine in Singapore?
Five documents, doing different jobs: the Healthcare Services Act 2020, the Healthcare Services (Outpatient Medical Service) Regulations 2023, Joint Circular 87/2024 from MOH, HSA and the Singapore Medical Council, the SMC's Ethical Code and Ethical Guidelines, and the 2015 national telemedicine guidelines, which are context rather than the governing instrument.
Did Singapore's regulators restrict GLP-1 prescribing by telemedicine?
They required a protocol for it. Joint Circular 87/2024 lists GLP-1 injections, alongside asthma inhalers and insulin, among the examples of medicines a licensee's own written guidelines must address, on the grounds that the patient has to be taught to use them (Circular 87/2024).
Why does a first consultation have to be by video?
Because the regulations say so. A licensee must not provide an outpatient medical service by remote provision to a first-time patient unless it is through real-time two-way interactive audiovisual communications (OMS Regulations).
Is remote care held to a lower standard than a clinic visit?
No. The SMC requires a doctor practising telemedicine to provide the same quality and standard of care as in-person care, and to state the limitations of their opinion otherwise — while stating plainly that telemedicine is not equal to conventional in-person care (SMC).
What happens if the doctor cannot assess something over video?
The licensee has to arrange it another way. Where a practitioner is of the opinion that a patient needs treatment, care or a physical examination that cannot be carried out remotely, the regulations require alternative arrangements to be made and the patient informed (OMS Regulations).