Our answers to your questions

No special prior knowledge is required to use the Medgate App. All you need is a current smartphone with a stable internet connection. iOS devices from version 15.1 and Android devices from version 11 are supported. Before using it for the first time, you must create a user account, verify your identity and deposit your insurance card (insurance card number). The app is available in German, English, French and Italian. Select the language you are most comfortable with in the settings.

To register in the Medgate App, you first create a user account with your email address and a personal password. Then, your identity is verified with a valid identification document (identity card or passport). After that, you deposit your insurance card with the insurance card number. Once these steps are completed, you can use the medical services of the app.

The card ID number is located on the back (bottom left) of your insurance card. The details of supplementary insurance are on the front of the card.

The card identification number enables us to retrieve your insurance information so that you do not have to enter all the details manually.

If you have forgotten your password, select the "Forgot password?" function on the login screen and follow the instructions. If you are unsure with which email address you are registered, please contact our customer service at +41 61 377 88 28.

Please read the error message carefully to check whether the password is incorrect or an incorrect email address has been entered. Ensure there are no typing errors in the email address or password. If the details are correct and you still cannot log in, please contact our customer service at +41 61 377 88 28.

In the app, go to “Account” > “Permissions” > “Change password” and follow the instructions. You can change your password in the Medgate App at any time.

You can log in on any device using your email address and password to access your data. If your phone number has changed, you can update it in the app under “Account” > select the desired person > “Mobile number”.

To schedule an appointment for a teleconsultation, select the "Medical Consultation" function on the app's home screen and then select the desired profile. Enter your symptoms via the questionnaire and receive a recommendation as to whether your concern can be treated by Medgate doctors by phone, video or chat, or whether a visit to your family doctor is advisable. The app also indicates if it is an urgent medical case. If a teleconsultation is recommended, you can book an appointment directly afterwards, choose the desired language of the doctor and set a suitable appointment for you. Please note that the language selection may affect the availability of appointments.

At the scheduled appointment, you will be contacted by a Medgate doctor via phone or video. Your symptoms and questions will be thoroughly discussed, and you will receive expert medical advice and treatment. If medically necessary, prescriptions, referrals (e.g. for physiotherapy), or medical certificates can also be issued. Your treatment plan and all other medical documents will then be available directly in your Medgate App.

First, enter your primary symptom. In the following questionnaire, you can provide additional information such as duration, intensity, and accompanying complaints.

Push notifications ensure that you do not miss any important information regarding your treatment. To receive all notifications, please allow the app to send push notifications. Activate the desired notification categories under “Account > Permissions > Notifications”.

You will be notified in the following situations:

1. Appointment reminder 24 hours before your teleconsultation
2. Appointment reminder 1 hour before your teleconsultation
3. Appointment reminder shortly before contact, as soon as the doctor begins attending to your case
4. If documents are still missing for your consultation
5. If a scheduled teleconsultation is delayed
6. If a scheduled consultation needs to be cancelled
7. As soon as new medical documents (e.g. treatment plan, prescription, medical certificate) are available
8. If a request has been declined
9. If a child profile you created is about to reach adulthood

If you are not available for the first call, our doctors usually try to contact you two to three more times. If you are still unavailable, the appointment will be released for other patients. In this case, please book a new appointment in the Medgate App.
Important: You do not have to call us actively. We will contact you from our side.

We carefully schedule consultations. However, delays may occur due to an unexpectedly high number of urgent medical requests or sudden staff shortages. In such cases, you will receive a notification in the app with the new call time. If your health condition worsens in the meantime or a later call is not possible for you, please use the adult emergency or child emergency services (accessible directly from the app’s home screen).

Your appointment time may change for various reasons:

1. If you were not reachable at the original call time
2. If there is an unexpectedly high number of urgent medical requests causing delays
3. If documents required for proper treatment are still missing from you
4. If your case needed to be prioritised for medical reasons

We will inform you of any changes to your appointment time via push notification directly in the app.

If you are unable to attend a scheduled appointment, please cancel it as early as possible. To do so, access the relevant consultation either via the app’s home screen or under “Account” > “Consultations”. Then select the “Cancel consultation” option. No fees will be charged for cancelled appointments.

Consultations can be conducted in German, French, Italian, and English. Please note that appointments are not always available in all languages. When booking an appointment, this means that no further appointments can be scheduled if all available slots in a particular language have already been taken. The chat will indicate directly if a language is currently unavailable.

To start a medical chat consultation, select «medical consultation» on the app’s home screen and then choose the desired profile. Tap «Start chat» and enter your symptoms via the questionnaire. You will then receive a recommendation on whether your issue can be handled by the Medgate medical team or if a visit to your GP is advisable. The app will also inform you if it is a medical emergency. If a teleconsultation is recommended, you can immediately select the preferred language of the doctor and start the chat. Please enable push notifications so you do not miss any messages from the doctor. Activate «Receive notifications» under «Account» > «Permissions» and also enable «Treatment notification» within the notification categories.

The chat button for medical concerns and administrative questions is permanently displayed in the app. If a chat is temporarily unavailable in a particular language, this will be indicated directly below the language selection with the message «Not available». Please choose a different language in this case to start the chat.

You can submit administrative enquiries directly via the app’s home screen. To do so, tap on the «Administrative Question» function.

Our team of doctors strives to answer your request in the chat as quickly as possible. Please understand that depending on the number of urgent medical requests, there may be waiting times. Your request will not be lost. As soon as a doctor is available, you will receive a response directly in the app. To make sure you don't miss a response, we recommend activating push notifications for the Medgate App: Under «Account» > «Permissions» select the option «Receive notifications», as well as within the notification categories the «Treatment notification».

If medically appropriate, the Medgate doctor can issue a prescription after a telephone consultation. Medical certificates to confirm incapacity for work are issued at the discretion of the doctor and are subject to strict guidelines. The guidelines for the issue of a medical certificate are:

Medical certificate after a teleconsultation

Excerpt from Medgate’s guidelines

• The Medgate physician may only certify facts that he believes to be true based on careful and expert appraisal.
• The medical certificate is only valid as proof of the certified incapacity for work after the employer has accepted it.
• A certificate for 100 % incapacity for work can be issued. Partial incapacity for work cannot be assessed over the phone or video.
• Medgate will issue a simple medical certificate. This is based on the certificate published by the Swiss Insurance Medicine syndicate.

As a rule, it is not possible to issue retroactive certificates; the certificate of incapacity for work is only possible from the date of the first contact with Medgate.

Employers are not obliged to accept a sick note issued via telemedicine. This notice is also explicitly stated on the certificate itself.

If a teleconsultation indicates that further medical treatment is required, our doctors refer you to a doctor of your choice. Alternatively, we would be happy to recommend a doctor in the Medgate Partner Network. Please note that a free choice of doctor may be limited in some alternative insurance plans.

After you have attended the recommended examination or appointment with the referring doctor, please get back to us. Use the «Administrative Question» function in the Medgate App for this purpose. This will ensure that your treatment can be continued seamlessly and that the next steps can be planned together.

Photos, documents, or recordings can help our doctors better understand your concern. Please consider the following points:

• Take at least three photos of your symptoms.
  • From a distance
  • Up close
  • From the side (to show any elevations)
• Place a coin or ruler in the field of view as a reference size.
• Ensure the photo is not too dark or blurry.
• If only one side of the body is affected, also take a photo of the unaffected side for comparison (e.g., hands, feet, knees, eyes).
• The face and genital area should not be photographed if these parts are not affected by the current health complaint. If this is not possible for the area selected, please cover the genitalarea – especially if the patient is a child.
• Get help from someone if necessary, or use a tripod and self-timer. If your smartphone uses the "Live Photos" function, turn it off.

If you do not use the Medgate App, you will receive an individual link via email and SMS before your teleconsultation, granting you access to the Medgate Upload Portal. There, you must first enter your date of birth to confirm access. You can then select the desired files on your device or drag and drop them into the designated area. By clicking “Upload”, the files will be sent to the treating doctor.

If you do not use the Medgate App, you will receive an individual link via email and SMS before your teleconsultation, granting you access to the Medgate Upload Portal. There, you must first enter your date of birth to confirm access. You can then select the desired files on your device or drag and drop them into the designated area. By clicking “Upload”, the files will be sent to the treating doctor.

Please note that this method is intended for single use only and may be less convenient. We recommend using the Medgate App, where you can add your photos and documents directly to the consultation, have access to your treatment plan and medical documents at any time, and easily book appointments yourself.

In the Medgate App, you can upload photos and documents in several ways: either at the end of the appointment booking process, via the home screen by accessing your consultation, or through “Account > Consultations” by selecting the desired consultation. In all cases, you will be taken to the consultation details page, where you can add your files by clicking the “+” symbol on the right-hand side.

If you do not use the Medgate App, you will receive an email after your teleconsultation containing an individual link to the Medgate Download Portal. When you click the link, the portal will open. At the same time, you will receive a confirmation code via SMS, which you must enter. Only after successfully entering this code can you access and download your documents.

Please note that for each subsequent access, you must open the email link again and enter the current SMS code. Additionally, your documents are only available via this method for seven days following the teleconsultation.

Using the Medgate App is simpler and more convenient: your documents are available at any time and permanently without additional links or codes. At the same time, the app provides direct access to your treatment plan, allows you to book appointments yourself, and upload documents easily.

In the Medgate App, you can find your documents under the “Treatments” menu. Select the desired treatment to view the treatment plan and all related documents. You can also download or forward the documents using the icon at the top right. Please note that forwarding takes place outside the Medgate App, and the security of the chosen channel is your responsibility. Your documents are available to you at any time and permanently within the app.

You can upload up to 10 files. Each file may be a maximum of 10 MB in size.

The following formats are supported:

• Documents: pdf
• Photos: jpeg, jpg, png, HEIC
• Audio: m4a, mp3
• Video: mov, mp4, webm

Yes, this is possible – but only as long as the files have not been finally saved. During the booking process, you can remove uploaded files as long as you have not yet clicked “Next”. You can also delete files before saving in the consultation overview (accessible via the appointment notification on the home screen or under “Account” > “Consultations”). To do this, open the consultation, click the “+” symbol to add files, and remove unwanted files using the “X” on the right side. Once the images/documents have been sent to Medgate, they become part of your medical record and can no longer be deleted by you in the app.

Error messages during the upload of images, videos, or documents may occur for the following reasons:

• Maximum number exceeded: You can upload up to 10 files per request. To add another file, please remove an existing one first.
• Maximum file size exceeded: Each file may be a maximum of 10 MB in size.
• Unsupported file format: Allowed formats are pdf, jpeg, jpg, png, HEIC, m4a, mp3, mov, mp4, and webm.

When registering, you can choose whether to receive push notifications. You can later activate or deactivate them at any time under “Account” > “Permissions” > “Notifications” and manage the desired notification categories there. Please also ensure that push notifications are enabled in your device’s general settings as well as for the Medgate App.

Push notifications ensure that you do not miss any important information – such as appointment reminders, messages from your doctor, or new medical documents. Without push notifications, you would need to actively check this information yourself in the app.

If you are not receiving push notifications, this may be due to several reasons:

• Push notifications are disabled in your device settings or not permitted for the Medgate App.
• In the Medgate App, no or incorrect notification categories are activated under “Account” > “Permissions” > “Notifications”.
• Your internet connection is unstable or interrupted, preventing notifications from being delivered.

You must be an adult in order to use the app. However, minors can be added as a profile to the user account of a parent or guardian.

You can add a child profile directly in the app under “Account”. Alternatively, you can register a child when booking a medical consultation or submitting an administrative question. At the start, you will be asked who the request concerns. Please have your child’s insurance card ready, as insurance details must also be provided for children.

In the app, open the “Account” section, select the desired child profile, and tap “Remove child” at the bottom to delete the profile.

Once your child reaches adulthood, access to their profile in the Medgate App will be automatically removed for legal reasons and to protect medical data. Shortly before reaching adulthood, the legal guardians will receive a push notification regarding this. For your child to use the Medgate App independently, they must create their own user account. From that point on, medical documents will only be accessible to your child themselves, provided they have registered. As a legal guardian, you will no longer have access to the existing records after your child reaches adulthood.

Verification is necessary because, according to medical confidentiality, medical data may only be shared with the legal guardians. Verification ensures that only you, as the authorised person, have access to and can view your child’s medical documents. These include, for example, treatment plans, prescriptions, or medical certificates.

This is not possible as the medical confidentiality cannot be guaranteed. Only minor children of an authorized person can be added to a user account.

For reasons of data protection and medical confidentiality, the profile of a minor can only be assigned to a user account. If you wish to assign your child's profile to your partner's user account, you must delete it from your user account and then add it to your partner's account.

This is not possible, because medical confidentiality would not be maintained. Only under-age children of a legal guardian may be added to a user account.

Legal information, such as the general terms and conditions, can be found under “Account” > “Legal”.

You can submit your feedback or a complaint directly in the Medgate App under “Account” > “Customer Service”.