Medical certificates are sometimes required to obtain certain health benefits from an employer, to make an insurance claim, for tax purposes, or for certain legal procedures.
Medical certificates are often used to certify that someone is free of contagious diseases, drug addiction, mental illness, or other health issues.
This type of letter, which needs to be signed by a licensed healthcare provider, needs to state that the patient has met the criteria to end quarantine and is no longer infectious and cleared to travel.
[9] Except in certain unique circumstances, a holder of a medical certificate in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration may not "act as pilot in command or in any other capacity as a required flight crewmember of an aircraft".
[10] A patient with conditions such as: measles, chicken-pox, hepatitis A, leprosy, typhoid fever, and whooping cough, can return to work immediately after their healing phase or medical tests.
Any airman who is required to hold a medical certificate must give the Federal Aviation Administration access to the National Driver Register.
On top of this, other tests which are required for first-, second- and third-class airmen are: eye, ear/nose/throat/equilibrium, mental, neurologic, and cardiovascular.
[20] In one case, a woman claimed she was "coerced into falsifying [a] medical certificate [which ultimately led to her being fired] because she was 'being bullied and treated unfairly' by two managers".
[16] A number of key principles govern the issuing of medical certificate, although there are variations in procedure between jurisdictions.