Compliance of a remote medical consultation in Georgia is a patient-oriented procedural matter: consent, information and documentation operate at a digital screen with exactly the same strictness as in an office. The Law on Medical Practice carries these three pillars in separate articles: informed consent (Article 44), the provision of information to the patient (Article 39) and access to medical documentation (Article 41), while the responsibility for a remote recommendation comes from Article 90. This page describes each pillar with its article, shows the narrow exceptions governing the withholding of information, and demonstrates that distance lightens none of these duties.
Informed Consent — On Both Sides of the Screen
Before the delivery of a medical service, the subject is obliged to obtain the patient’s oral or written informed consent to the intended intervention (Article 44, paragraph 1). The remote form does not lighten this duty: whether the consultation runs by video call or by message, consent precedes the service. Written consent is mandatory before grave interventions: any surgical operation (except minor manipulations), abortion, catheterization of blood vessels (except peripheral veins), transfusion of blood or its components, hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis, artificial insemination, sterilization, transplantation of a human organ and the use of human tissue or cells, genetic testing, gene and radiation therapy, chemotherapy of malignant tumours (paragraph 2). The telehealth consent templates of American practice carry no authority in Georgian law — the document must be built on the requirements of the Georgian statute, not imported as a form.
The Withholding of Information — A Narrow Exception and Its Procedure
Article 39 regulates not only the duty to inform but also the narrow cases in which information is not supplied to the patient. The information of the first three sub-paragraphs of paragraph 1 — the state of health, the results of examinations and the types of service — is supplied to the patient only with their consent, except where non-supply may cause serious harm to the health or the life of the patient or of a third person. Where a grounded suspicion exists that the supply of information will cause serious harm to the patient’s health, the subject does not supply it — but such a decision is confirmed by the medical ethics commission and, in its absence, by a second subject of independent medical practice. The decisive word belongs to the patient: if the patient insistently demands the information, the subject is obliged to supply it even then. In every case of non-supply the subject must enter in the medical documentation a record indicating the ground of the non-supply — even the exception leaves a documentary trace. In remote care this trace matters doubly: it is precisely the record that proves who took the decision, which body confirmed it and on what ground.
Medical Documentation and Access to It
Article 41 establishes the rule of access to documentation: at the patient’s request the subject presents the information contained in the medical documentation about the state of health — the results of diagnostic examinations, data connected with treatment and care, and entries reflecting a consultation conducted by another subject. In the case of minority or of the inability to take a conscious decision, this right passes to the patient’s relative or legal representative. In the statutory exception cases the subject has the right not to present information to a capable patient, or to limit its scope — but here too an insistent demand has the last word: the information must still be presented. A relative or a legal representative is presented the documentation of a capable patient only with the patient’s consent. The record of a remote consultation is a full member of this system: a patient who spoke to a physician through a screen demands and receives the data reflecting that consultation under the same rule.
Who Answers for the Recommendation
Article 90 places the centre of responsibility precisely on the provider: only a subject of independent medical practice has the right to receive a consultation using telemedicine, only such a subject gives the recommendation, and it is exactly that subject which is responsible for the results of the service delivered in this form. A compliance diagnosis therefore begins with three questions: does the provider hold the status of a subject; was consent obtained and information supplied in an acceptable form; and was the consultation reflected in the documentation to which the patient has access. Three positive answers mean the remote service stands on the same legal footing as care delivered in the office; a single negative answer suffices to make the whole procedure disputable.
How is consent fixed in a remote consultation?
As in the office — orally or in writing, and for grave interventions necessarily in writing; distance does not change the form (Article 44).
What information is the patient entitled to?
Complete, objective, timely and understandable — on interventions, alternatives, risk, results, diagnosis and prognosis, in a form acceptable to them (Article 39).
May the physician withhold information?
Only by way of exception — within the frame of a grounded suspicion, confirmation by the ethics commission or a second subject, and a documentary record; an insistent demand restores the duty to supply (Article 39).
May the patient see the record of a remote consultation?
Yes — on request, subject to the same presentation rule as other medical documentation (Article 41).
Who is responsible for the recommendation?
The subject that directly gives it — the remote form does not reduce responsibility (Article 90).
How We Help on Legal.ge
The Legal.ge team checks remote-consultation compliance on all three pillars: the consent regime against Article 44, the quality of information and the lawfulness of any withholding against Article 39, and the accessibility of documentation against Article 41; we help patients record violations and providers organize the procedure lawfully. Contact Legal.ge — remote care is fully valid only when its procedure is complete.