Doctor advertising law
The doctor advertising law in Germany is the set of laws on the possibilities and limits of advertising by doctors and dentists rules. The legal basis of the law on medical recruitment are the respective professional regulations of the state (dental) medical associations in the individual federal states, the Medicines Advertising Act (HWG) and the law against unfair competition (UWG).
As a goal of advertising restrictions for doctors, the professional regulations state the guarantee of patient protection through appropriate and appropriate information as well as the avoidance of a commercialization of the medical profession that goes against the self-image of the doctor.
Principles of advertising law
Medical advertising law has changed significantly in recent years. Until a few years ago, doctors were forbidden from advertising. In the course of the liberalizing case law of the Federal Constitutional Court on the advertising right of freelancers , the provisions were relaxed. Since 2002 (105th Doctors' Day in Rostock), factual, professional information has been permitted in accordance with Section 27 of the model professional code of the German Medical Association , the German Dental Association and all professional codes of the state (dental) medical associations, and therefore advertising is generally permitted. Only "unprofessional" advertising that unobjectively influences the lay public and could thereby cause an indirect health hazard remains prohibited. This includes, in particular, promotional, misleading and comparative advertising. Further forbidden are z. B. Eye-catching advertising, superlatives, self-praise, references to letters of recommendation and acknowledgments, whereby, according to legal authors, local practice and the target group of the advertising should be taken into account.
The more recent case law of the Federal Constitutional Court (as of July 14, 2012) also rejects restrictive interpretations of its case law. According to the BVerfG, professional regulations for (dentists) doctors are to be interpreted in a constitutional manner. In particular, in the light of the fundamental right to freedom of occupation, the constitutional requirement that an advertising ban be comprehensible on the basis of plausible reasons and by no means be justified in a blanket manner. The scope of the fundamental right to freedom of occupation is regularly misunderstood and thus restricted in an inadmissible manner if, when determining the (advertising) term understanding, certain obvious aspects that are clearly relevant to the statement of the term are either not discussed at all or theirs Consideration is rejected with unacceptable reasoning.
In the course of liberalization, the distinction between hospital doctors and doctors in private practice has meanwhile been abandoned, so that doctors in private practice can also advertise to the same extent. According to a judgment of the Federal Court of Justice, self-portrayal in doctor's clothing, which is legally prohibited in the HWG, is also permitted. According to recent rulings, competitions are allowed at least for dentists.
Internet
Doctors are allowed to have an Internet presence. The German Medical Association and the individual State Medical Associations have issued guidelines on this which vary in detail. In addition, the requirements of the Telemedia Act must be observed when designing the homepage and the imprint .
- The statements must be factual and relate to the provision of medical services
- Organizational information about the practice is allowed: location, opening times, parking, information for the disabled, telephone number. E-mail address and fax number must even be given.
- Mandatory information includes the job title, the state in which it was acquired, the competent supervisory authority, the existing liability insurance and its geographical scope, etc.
- Guest books and forums could contain promotional advertising and should therefore only be used to a limited extent.
- The domain must not suggest that the doctor alone covers a certain specialty (example: www.kinderarzt.de) or represents a specialty alone in one place, if that is not the case (example: www.hno-berlin.de). Combinations of specialty with the name of the doctor are allowed (example: www.zahnarzt-mustermann.de).
- When using meta tags , only relevant terms are allowed; excessive accumulation can be regarded as unauthorized advertising
- The homepage should correspond to the 'recognized state of the art ', which means that the source text complies with the guidelines of the W3C and the page is designed to be barrier-free.
- Publication lists that suggest that a doctor is particularly well versed in a field are prohibited.
- Advertising for the website is permitted if it is not too intrusive (no pop-ups ).
- Entry in link lists is permitted as long as this entry is also open to all other doctors.
Although ignoring these guidelines can result in expensive warnings, they are often not followed.
literature
- Beate Bahner, The new advertising law for doctors , 2nd edition, Springer, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-540-00036-4 .
- Christoph Kretschmer, Medical Advertising in a European Context , Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-631-55734-5 .
- Stephan Kock: "Changing medical advertising - what can a doctor really do?" Deutsches Ärzteblatt - Magazin PRAXiS, 04/2013 online
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sample professional regulations at the German Medical Association (as of 2006) ( Memento of the original dated September 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ German Dental Association, sample professional regulations, status May 19, 2010 (PDF; 46 kB)
- ↑ Press release "Doctor advertising allowed on television" Status: 23 August 2009
- ↑ Hüttl P, Heberer J, von Knoch M, Siegert M: The advertising right of medical service providers , The surgeon BDC 11 · 2007 p. 383 ff. PDF
- ↑ BVerfG, decision of July 14, 2012, AZ: 1 BvR 407/11
- ^ Decision of March 7, 2012; AZ: 1 BvR 1209/11
- ↑ BVerfG, decision of July 14, 2012, AZ: 1 BvR 407/11
- ^ German Hospital Society: Explanation of the judgment as of August 23, 2009
- ↑ BGH: Advertising from the dentist with competition and further information allowed on the website (MacDent) Status: 23 August 2009
- ↑ Ärzteblatt July 23, 2008: Physician websites: around 8,000 websites have been warned ( memento of the original from May 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
