Day-One Checklist: opening a nursing home in Maharashtra

A free guide from DoctorLawyer Academy. It summarises what the law, as read for the course between 9 and 24 October 2026, asks of a new nursing home on its first day. Lines marked "our recommendation" are ours, not rules. It teaches the law; it is not advice on your own nursing home. Re-check before relying on any line.

Before the first admission

• ☐ The authority's answer in writing on whether the Maharashtra Nursing Homes Registration Act's registration provisions extend to your area and are in force there (s.1(2), (3)).
• ☐ Registration certificate in hand, where the Act applies. Apply in Form B at least one month before opening. No reply is not permission to open: do not admit patients until the certificate in Form C is issued (Act, s.3; Rules, 1973, r.4).
• ☐ Fire approvals for the building in hand, and the twice-yearly fire Form B certificate arranged for every January and July (Maharashtra Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act, 2006, s.3(3)).
• ☐ Each service's own licence or registration in hand before that service is first used, for example X-ray, ultrasound, pharmacy and bio-medical waste. (Our reading of each law: obtain each before first use.)

On the walls from day one

• ☐ Contacts of the local supervising authority and the grievance redressal cell (rule 11-B(5)).
• ☐ The list of doctors, with qualifications, registration number and its validity date, at reception (rule 11-Q(e)).
• ☐ Your rates, by the heads in Schedule III, displayed or in print (rule 11-Q(i)).
• ☐ A board that tells a patient the truth about who will treat them. Read it as a patient would. (Our recommendation.)

At reception and on the ward

• ☐ A complaint register at reception (rule 11-Q(d)).
• ☐ The admission register in Form D (rule 11-K).
• ☐ A way to tell every admitted patient the nature and cause of illness, the proposed care, expected results, possible complications and expected costs (rule 11-Q(a)), and to record it (our recommendation).
• ☐ Separate forms for treatment consent and for permission to use photographs. (Our recommendation.)
• ☐ A discharge card format (rule 11-Q(h)).

Ready for the first hard day

• ☐ Records: documents for the patient within 72 hours (doctors' conduct regulation 1.3.2, in the 2002 Regulations, whose status should be re-checked); photocopies of indoor papers on demand (rule 11-Q(g)).
• ☐ Victims of listed sexual offences and acid attacks: free first aid or treatment, and the police told at once (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, s.397). A child sexual offence must be reported (POCSO Act, 2012, s.19).
• ☐ Emergency patients get basic life support "without considering the financial capability of the patient" (rule 11-J(1)). "No patient shall be detained by hospitals for non-payment of bills" (rule 11-M), and no body is withheld for an unpaid bill (rule 11-L).
• ☐ When a complaint arrives (our recommendation): secure the records exactly as they are, tell your insurer and your advocate before you reply, and never rewrite the notes.

These lines come from the course "Before the First Admission: Opening a Nursing Home or Hospital in Maharashtra", which explains these points and the law behind them: doctorlawyeracademy.com/hospitalsetup

DoctorLawyer Academy is an initiative of DoctorLawyer™ Medicolegal Consulting Services.