Georgia’s statute covers specific procedures. O.C.G.A. § 31-9-6.1(a) applies to surgery under general, spinal, or major regional anesthesia, amniocentesis, and diagnostic procedures involving an intravenous or intraductal injection of contrast material. For those, the patient must be told in general terms about the diagnosis, the nature and purpose of the procedure, material risks on the statute’s list, likelihood of success, practical alternatives, and the prognosis without the procedure.
The listed risks are infection, allergic reaction, severe loss of blood, loss or loss of function of a limb or organ, paralysis, disfiguring scar, brain damage, cardiac arrest, and death.
A violation isn’t a separate cause of action. Under subsection (d), it may give rise to malpractice, against the responsible physician or an employing hospital or practice, if the patient shows:
- the procedure proximately caused an injury;
- information about that injury wasn’t disclosed as required;
- a reasonably prudent patient would have refused or chosen a practical alternative.
A signed form that discloses these items in general terms is rebuttably presumed valid, (b)(2). The expert affidavit under § 9-11-9.1 must also say that the injury was a material risk required to be disclosed.
Subsection (e) has exceptions: an emergency, a procedure with no material risk, a written request not to be told, a prior consent within 30 days, and an unforeseen procedure the patient allowed the doctor to decide.
Outside the statute’s list, the claim gets much harder. In Blotner v. Doreika (2009), the Georgia Supreme Court said Georgia doesn’t recognize a common law duty to inform patients of the material risks of a treatment, overruled the contrary Court of Appeals decision in Ketchup v. Howard (2000), and found chiropractic treatment outside § 31-9-6.1. So whether a non-listed treatment leaves any consent claim is a question to take to a lawyer, with the procedure and its date.
General information about Georgia law as of November 2026. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship.