For a digital health startup the legal question does not begin in the middle: before a product reaches the market it must be clear who may provide medical services in Georgia, in what form and through which channel. The Law of Georgia on Medical Activity governs precisely that legal gateway: the scope of regulation, the concept of the activity, the conditions of the right to practise, certification, state supervision and telemedicine. That is also the boundary of this page: institutional licensing of clinic facilities is a separate sphere deliberately left aside, and health data protection has a page of its own.
Article 2 provides that the law governs legal relations between the subject of independent medical activity, the paramedic, state authorities, natural persons and legal persons. For a startup this wording matters: the law touches not only the physician but every participant entering these relations.
What Medical Activity Is
Article 5 defines the concepts. Medical activity is the professional activity of a person trained in medicine, possessing appropriate skills and practical experience, aimed at protecting, preserving and restoring human health through the application of nationally recognised medical standards and ethical norms. Independent medical activity is the professional activity of a person holding higher medical education and a state certificate confirming the right to such activity, who answers for its results under the established procedure.
The terminology names the startup’s plan precisely: a specialist physician is one who has completed residency, and the subject of independent medical activity is a person who conducts it under the procedure established by law. A platform that organises consultations cannot replace the subject — it must build a sound legal construction around its relationship with the subject.
The same article also defines continuing professional development — an inseparable part of medical activity continuing throughout the professional career and keeping the subject’s knowledge aligned with contemporary medicine. For a startup this means the team’s qualifications are not exhausted by a one-off certificate.
Who Holds the Right to Independent Practice
Article 7 sets the conditions: the right belongs to a citizen of Georgia or of a foreign state or a stateless person who has graduated from a higher medical institution holding state accreditation and has received the state certificate under the procedure established by law. The same article adds that the right cannot belong to a person deprived of it by court under the law on combating crimes against sexual freedom and inviolability, and that practice is admissible only in the specialty indicated in the certificate.
For citizens of foreign states the law also recognises temporary medical activity — independent medical activity conducted in the procedure and for the duration established by Georgian legislation. Access to postgraduate education runs through the unified postgraduate qualification examination, whose successful passage gives a graduate of a higher medical institution the right to postgraduate training — stages worth knowing when assembling a team.