What is a doctor allowed to do on weekends?

What is possible on Saturday and Sunday

The German medical licensing law (Approbationsordnung) recognises no time restriction. A licensed physician may at 10 pm on a Sunday do exactly what they do at 10 am on a Wednesday — examine, diagnose, prescribe, issue sick-notes, perform minor procedures like suturing, admit to hospital, administer emergency drugs. What is limited on weekends is not medical competence but the availability of the regular GP practice. Two systems fill that gap: the statutory on-call service under 116117 for GKV patients, and the private on-call service for PKV patients, self-payers and travellers.

On weekends services are billed under GOÄ with an explicit out-of-hours surcharge — the legislator acknowledges the higher effort and personal availability of physicians. That means a Sunday bill is typically 30 to 60 euros higher than a Tuesday afternoon bill for the same complaint. The medical content is identical. You receive the same diagnostics, the same prescription and the same sick-note. A sick-note dated Saturday or Sunday is fully valid for your employer — it must be submitted by the fourth day of illness and is valid from the day of the medical examination.

The only real limits are infrastructural: laboratories run reduced services on weekends, radiology is on hospital standby only, certain specialist work-ups must wait until Monday. The house-call doctor therefore decides based on what the mobile practice can establish on site — history, examination, ECG, rapid tests, oxygen saturation, urinalysis. If that is not enough, hospital admission or a Monday follow-up is organised. In practice the mobile setting fully covers around 90 percent of cases — the other 10 percent belong in A&E anyway.

Example: a Sunday sick-note

A Berliner in Prenzlauer Berg falls ill on Saturday afternoon with high fever and severe cough. By Sunday morning she is unfit for work, her GP is closed, and she needs a sick-note for Monday. A private house call on Sunday at 10 am — the doctor examines her, diagnoses a viral respiratory infection, rules out pneumonia and issues a five-day sick-note dated from Sunday. The certificate is handed over immediately and is legally valid for the employer. Cost: about 270 euros including the weekend surcharge, fully reimbursed under a standard full PKV policy.

Concrete weekend powers

• Diagnosis and treatment of all acute complaints — no difference to weekday practice.
• Prescriptions — including antibiotics, analgesics, short-term private prescriptions; weekend pharmacy roster via www.akberlin.de.
• Sick-note (AU) — on site or digital, valid from the examination date.
• Wound care, small sutures, dressing changes, vaccinations (where vaccine is carried).
• Hospital admission with written referral — legally valid on Sundays.
• On-site emergency drugs: adrenaline, steroids, antiemetics, injectable analgesics.
• Weekend surcharge under GOÄ is legal and transparently itemised on the bill.
• For life-threatening symptoms always 112 — including 4 am Sunday.