A Sick Note Without a Doctor

Is there such a thing as a sick note without a doctor?

Offers exist and they are easy to find: you fill in a questionnaire, usually pay between 25 and 30 euros and shortly afterwards receive a PDF. No doctor has seen you or spoken to you. Legally that is the decisive defect, because incapacity for work has to be established by a doctor, and it is established in contact, not in a form.

What you receive in those cases looks like a certificate. Whether it also works like one in a dispute is the real question, and the courts have answered it clearly.

What has happened when it came to the crunch?

The Landesarbeitsgericht Hamm upheld the summary dismissal of an employee who had submitted a certificate issued without any contact with a doctor (judgment of 5 September 2025, case no. 14 SLa 145/25). The reason for dismissal was not being ill but submitting proof that was none.

In April 2026 the Landgericht Köln held that making a diagnosis solely on the basis of a completed questionnaire does not meet the professional standard for any condition (judgment of 29 April 2026). So from a medical point of view too it is settled that no finding in the legal sense takes place here.

For you that means a double risk: the employer can refuse continued pay, and in the worst case the employment relationship itself is at stake. The 29 euros are then the smallest item on the bill.

How do you recognise such providers?

The clearest sign is the absence of an appointment. Where there is only a form and a payment step but no time at which someone speaks to you, no contact with a doctor takes place either. A second sign is promises about the outcome: anyone promising a certificate or guaranteeing that it will be recognised is saying that the medical decision is already fixed before the examination.

Also check the legal notice. Often there is a letterbox company abroad, frequently with no address for service in Germany and no named doctor. Several medical associations now keep warning lists of doctors' names that appear on such certificates without those doctors existing.

And if you simply do not want to do a video call?

The wish is understandable, especially when you feel ill and not at your best. The alternative of a phone call is out, though: the telephone sick note was always limited to practices that already knew the patient, and under the coalition decision of 2 July 2026 it is to be abolished entirely. The video consultation is expressly to remain.

In practice the consultation takes a few minutes, and it is not about making a good impression. The doctor looks at your general condition, asks targeted questions and, where appropriate, has you show a temperature reading. Camera on, a short conversation, done.

What does the video consultation change about the outcome?

It turns the document into proof. The evidential value of a certificate depends on a doctor actually having established the incapacity for work. On video that is the case: visual contact, questions, an assessment of your general condition, all documented.

The Arbeitsgericht Erfurt gave a private certificate issued this way full evidential value, because the doctor had seen the patient and watched the temperature being taken (judgment of 19 July 2023, case no. 4 Ca 32/23). Anyone wanting to question the certificate then has to put forward concrete facts, and where there was genuine contact with a doctor they generally have none.

Is the difference worth it?

The price difference is small. Offers without contact with a doctor usually cost 28 to 30 euros, a medical video consultation with us usually €49.99. For a few euros more you get, instead of a PDF, a medical consultation with a doctor licensed in Germany and a certificate backed by a documented finding.

What we do not promise you: that a certificate is the outcome. The doctor decides during the consultation. If incapacity for work is medically justifiable, you receive it as a PDF, for at most 3 calendar days and without backdating. Otherwise you receive a clear recommendation on how to proceed. That openness is exactly the difference from an offer whose outcome is fixed the moment you pay.