Formulate national standards governing digitally aggregated home medical services: Doctors' body urges NMC, Health Ministry
Doctor
New Delhi: Highlighting the issue of commercialisation of Door-to-Door medical services through digital aggregator platforms, a doctors' body has urged the National Medical Commission (NMC), the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and other competent authorities to examine this emerging model and formulate clear national standards governing digitally aggregated home medical services.
Apart from this, the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) has also made an urgent appeal to all the registered medical practitioners across India to exercise extreme caution before associating themselves with commercial door-to-door medical aggregator platforms, particularly where adequate clinical protocols, safety mechanisms, professional indemnity and clearly defined medico-legal responsibilities are absent.
Referring to the rapidly emerging business model of digital platforms and corporate aggregators offering on-demand, door-to-door services, the association has clarified that home visits are not wrong.
"Doctors have always visited patients at home when medically appropriate—particularly elderly, bedridden, palliative-care, disabled and other patients who genuinely require home-based medical care. Such care, when guided by clinical judgment and delivered with appropriate safeguards, remains an important part of compassionate medical practice," said the association.
However, it added that the concern was not home visits, but the conversion of the doctor's home visit into an on-demand commercial business model.
"Medicine cannot be treated like food delivery, cab booking or another doorstep service where a doctor is dispatched through an application merely because a customer clicks a button," it added.
FAIMA said a doctor's decision to undertake a home consultation must be based on clinical appropriateness, patient safety, and professional judgment- not corporate targets, algorithms, incentives or commercial demand.
The associate expressed concern about digital aggregator models operating without clearly defined safeguards regarding clinical triage, emergency backup, documentation, informed consent, patient identification, professional indemnity, doctor safety, data protection, prescription responsibility, referral protocols, and medico-legal accountability.
"A patient's residence cannot automatically be considered equivalent to a hospital, clinic or emergency facility. Certain clinical conditions require investigations, monitoring, trained support staff, emergency drugs, oxygen, resuscitation facilities and immediate referral capabilities," the association said.
FAIMA said that convenience must never be allowed to override clinical safety. It also expressed concern over the possibility of doctors being converted into a low-cost, on-demand workforce while digital intermediaries determine consultation pricing, availability, and service conditions.
"A Doctor's Professional Value cannot be reduced to the lowest price offered on an app," FAIMA said, adding that years of medical education, residency, clinical training and professional responsibility deserve appropriate dignity and professional autonomy.
Urging NMC, Health Ministry, and other authorities to examine this emerging model and formulate clear national standards governing such digitally aggregated home medical services, FAIMA added that such standards should protect both patients and doctors and clearly define clinical eligibility, triage, documentation, consent, emergency referral, professional liability, data protection, doctor safety and the responsibilities of the digital platform.
The association has reiterated the requirement for genuine and clinically appropriate home-based medical care, technology that strengthens doctor-patient care, while saying no to reducing doctors to on-demand delivery personnel, corporate models that compromise clinical judgment, patient safety, or professional dignity, and to commercialisation without accountability, regulation and safeguards.
"Technology should support the medical profession—not devalue it. Innovation should improve patient care—not compromise standards of care. Until adequate safeguards and accountability mechanisms are established, we urge our colleagues to carefully reconsider participation in such commercial aggregator models," it added.
Speaking to Medical Dialogues, Dr. Srinath Dubyala, the National President, FAIMA, said, "FAIMA is concerned about the rapid commercialisation of on-demand doorstep medical services through digital platforms. Our concern is not with genuine home visits based on clinical necessity, but with converting medical consultation into an instant, app-based delivery model without clearly defined regulatory safeguards and medico-legal accountability."
"FAIMA will be submitting formal representations to State Medical Councils across the country seeking examination of these platforms under the applicable professional conduct and medical practice regulations and requesting appropriate guidelines to protect both patients and registered medical practitioners. Until clear regulations, clinical safeguards and accountability mechanisms are established, we appeal to doctors to exercise caution before associating with such platforms," he added.
Dr. Srinath further mentioned that "Technology can facilitate healthcare, but medicine cannot be reduced to a doorstep delivery service. Patient safety, professional autonomy and the dignity of the medical profession must remain paramount."
