The Impact of Failure to Achieve a Result on the Performance of a Contract for the Provision of Medical Services

Contractual liability related to the provision of health services arises in the event of damage resulting from non-performance or improper performance by a doctor or dentist of obligations arising from a contract for the provision of medical services (treatment contract). A contract for the provision of medical services to which (under Article 750 of the Civil Code) the provisions on mandate apply (Article 734 ff. of the Civil Code) is considered a contract of diligent action, which means that the doctor’s obligation is not to achieve the designated therapeutic goal (in particular the patient’s recovery) but pursuing this goal with due diligence. However, there are views expressed in the literature that in some factual situations (in particular in the field of dentistry and aesthetic medicine), a doctor’s obligations should be classified as a result of obligation with the result that contractual liability also covers achieving the intended therapeutic result. The article is an attempt to assess the impact of failure to achieve a therapeutic result on the assessment of the performance of the medical services provision agreement.