The situation
A telehealth service offered from one country to patients in another
Your company in Utrecht employs 40 Dutch-registered GPs who hold video consultations in Dutch and English. Expatriates in Düsseldorf and Cologne have started booking, and the product team wants to market the service in Germany next quarter, including electronic prescriptions. The board asked one question: whose rules are we under?
There is no single answer, and that is where the hours go. The treatment, the patient contract, prescriptions, reimbursement, data protection and advertising each follow their own connecting rule. The memo has to take them in turn and say which ones still need German advice.
What the research has to settle
The rules behind the answer
- Telemedicine is provided where the provider is
- Under the Cross-Border Healthcare Directive, healthcare provided by telemedicine is considered to be provided in the member state where the provider is established. The treatment follows Dutch law, including its standards and supervision.
- The patient contract has its own rule
- Where a business directs its services to consumers in another country, the Rome I Regulation generally prevents a choice of law from depriving those consumers of the mandatory protections of the law where they live. German consumer rules can still apply to the contract.
- Prescriptions travel, with limits
- The Directive requires member states to recognise prescriptions issued in another member state for a named patient, subject to exceptions. Whether a German pharmacy can dispense a given Dutch prescription, including an electronic one, is a separate practical and legal question.
- Marketing in Germany is its own question
- Advertising the service to patients in Germany engages German rules on advertising remote treatment, and the professional rules of the German medical chambers may be relevant. The memo should flag these for German advice rather than assume the Dutch rules cover them.
How it runs in azta
From the question to the document
The question, as you would type it
Dutch telehealth company with Dutch-registered GPs holding video consultations with patients living in Germany who book online. Which country’s law governs the treatment, the patient contract and e-prescriptions, and what German rules apply if we advertise there?
You start with
A telehealth service offered from one country to patients in another
- 01
Split the question by topic
Ask about treatment, contract, prescriptions, data and advertising in turn. azta searches the EU directives and regulations and the Dutch and German legislation.
Cited research· Free - 02
Check the German decisions on advertising
Ask for German court decisions on advertising remote treatment. azta summarises the holdings and links the full text.
Case-law search - 03
Draft the memo
Ask for a memo with one section per topic and a table of which country’s law applies to what. Edit it in Canvas.
Canvas · Ask azta· Pro - 04
Export for the board
Export to Word and keep the cited research for the German counsel you brief.
Word export· Pro You send
A memo on the law governing each part of the service, with points for local advice
What you get
A memo on the law governing each part of the service, with points for local advice
Legal memo · draft
Video consultations for patients in Germany: applicable rules
Treatment and supervision. Because the service is provided from the Netherlands, the consultations are treated as healthcare provided in the Netherlands. Dutch professional standards and Dutch supervision apply to the GPs for the treatment itself.
Patient contract. Our terms choose Dutch law. Because we direct the service at patients in Germany, they keep the protection of the mandatory German consumer rules, and the terms should be checked against them before launch.
Points for German advice. Advertising the service in Germany, the dispensing of our prescriptions by German pharmacies and any reimbursement by German insurers need confirmation from German counsel. The questions are listed in Annex A.
Outcomes on your numbers
What azta is worth on this task
Pro pays for itself after
14 minutes a month
At €120 an hour, that is all the time Pro (€27 a month) has to take off your desk to cover its price.
Example figures. Replace them with your own.
- Hours back a year
- 25
- Capacity at your rate
- €3,024
- More cross-border health memos a quarter
- 0.7
- Return on Pro
- 9.3×
- Research
- Drafting
- Your review
A scenario you set, not a promise. The hours that come back go to another client, or deeper into this one.
Want these numbers on your team’s real workload?
Book a demoSources azta searches here
- EUR-Lex · Curia
- wetten.overheid.nl
- Rechtspraak.nl
- Gesetze im Internet
- Rechtsprechung im Internet
What stays with you
- The facts of the service: who treats, from where, and how patients book.
- The medical chambers’ professional codes, which azta does not hold.
- The launch decision and the brief to German counsel.
Frequently asked questions
- Does azta hold the German medical chambers’ codes?
- No. It holds federal legislation and case law. The chambers’ professional codes are set regionally and need checking separately.
- What about reimbursement for patients insured in Germany?
- That is a separate question under EU social security coordination and national insurance law. Ask it on its own and azta cites the rules that apply.
- Can the memo be translated for German counsel?
- Yes. Select the text in Canvas and ask for a German version. The citations still open the provisions in the original language.
