Who Has the Right to Consult by Telemedicine
The lawful use of telemedicine in Georgia is governed by the special norms of the Law on Medical Practice, and the first point of compliance is subjective: under Article 90, only a subject of independent medical practice has the right to receive a medical consultation using telemedicine. This means that a model of remote consultation not led by a licensed physician does not count as lawful telemedicine.
The second and third parts of the same article reflect the architecture of responsibility: on the basis of a consultation received by telemedicine, the patient is given a recommendation only by a subject of independent medical practice, and responsibility for the results of the medical service rendered to the patient in this form lies precisely with the subject that directly issues the recommendation. A platform or a technological means is only a channel — the source of the clinical decision and the responsible party remains the physician.
In practical terms the subjective criterion is decisive in two situations. The first is the form of soliciting a consultation: where a service addresses the patient with an algorithmic or app-generated recommendation instead of a physician’s, it does not count as a lawful form of telemedicine, because the source of the recommendation is not a medical subject. The second is multi-stage service: where the consultation involves several specialists, the subject issuing the recommendation and bearing responsibility must be precisely identified in the documentation.
The Confidentiality of Patient Information
Article 91 regulates the second cornerstone of remote services — data protection. In the use of telemedicine means, the protection of the confidentiality of information about the patient is the duty of the subject of independent medical practice. The obligation of data security thus rests on the physician, and not only on the technical provider.
The law also defines the possibility of anonymity: at the patient’s request, data on his identity, state of health and private life may be transmitted by telemedicine anonymously. The practical consequence for platforms is clear: the system must technically support both identifiable and anonymous data flows, and the inability to meet this demand is already a defect of compliance, though its elimination is technically simple if the project provides for both regimes from the outset.