When we face a health problem, a doctor coming to our home to examine the patient can seem like a great favour. But how and on what legal basis this service is provided determines the difference between “healing” and a “legal nightmare” if something goes wrong.

Is Being a Doctor Enough for a Home Visit?

Known informally as “bag doctoring”, a physician going from house to house without being affiliated with any institution is legally regarded as unregistered service.

Legal obstacle: Medicine may only be practised at a registered address (a private practice or a hospital). A home has no such registration. Any doctor who does not come through a licensed home care center is technically practising in an unregistered setting.

Many people think, “The doctor works at a hospital or has a private practice, so they can treat anywhere.” But this is a serious fallacy:

“Under which institution’s responsibility is this doctor coming to this home? If something happens, against whom will I bring a malpractice claim?”

Individual visit: If the physician comes to your home without being affiliated with an institution, all legal responsibility rests on the physician personally. Hospital or practice insurance does not cover procedures at home.

Through a home care center: The physician is employed by the center. From examination to treatment, from records to any complications, the whole process is under institutional medical responsibility.

What Should Physicians Do?

To provide care at home legally, physicians should sign a contract with a home care center and be registered in the system as a full-time or part-time physician of the center. This way:

• The service is recorded and entered into the Ministry of Health system.
• A professional nursing team is provided to follow the treatment the physician recommends at home.
• You have an institutional counterpart in case of medical error.

Conclusion: Entrust Your Health to a System, Not to Luck

However strong the diploma, any examination without an institution licensed by the Ministry of Health behind it leaves both the physician and the patient unprotected. For your loved ones, choose not the most familiar option but the safest and lawful one.