Therapy freedom

Therapy freedom is the freedom of a physician to apply whichever therapy he or she believes to be appropriate, considering all his or her medical knowledge. This often means:

1. Such a physician has the legal right to prescribe an unlicensed drug.
2. A health insurance company is obliged to pay for the treatment, regardless of whether the health insurance company thinks that the treatment is appropriate or not.

However, therapy freedom is limited to cases where there does not exist any treatment which is both well-established and more efficacious.

Occurrence

Therapy freedom is only established in some countries.

Germany

In particular, therapy freedom is established in Germany and known as "Therapiefreiheit".

External links

• Superior state social court of the state of Berlin confirms therapy freedom of hospital's physicians (German)