MDCN practising licences and fees for Nigerian clinics
How Nigerian doctors renew MDCN practising licences and pay the fees through approved channels, and how a clinic that pays them keeps the record.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Healthcare businesses in Nigeria
In a private clinic in Lagos or Port Harcourt, the doctors' practising licences are easy to forget until someone asks for one. An HMO wants proof before it accredits the clinic; a hospital asks before granting a visiting doctor privileges; a patient's lawyer asks after a complaint. If a licence has lapsed, or nobody can find the current one, a routine request becomes a problem.
Many clinics pay their doctors' licence fees as a benefit, which makes the renewal partly the clinic's job too. This article covers what the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) regulates, the kinds of licence and certificate it issues, how its fees must be paid, and how a clinic can record the cost and keep each doctor's licence on file.
What MDCN regulates
MDCN states that its mission is to regulate the practice of Medicine, Dentistry and Alternative Medicine in Nigeria. Every doctor and dentist who practises in a clinic falls under its rules, and the clinic depends on each one holding a valid licence to practise.
MDCN also publishes the Code of Medical Ethics in Nigeria, a sanctioned doctors list and a quack doctors list, and offers primary-source verification of practitioners. Those lists matter to a clinic as much as to the public. A doctor who is on the sanctioned list, or whose registration status does not match what they told you, is a risk the clinic carries whenever they see a patient. Checking new doctors before they start is covered in verifying a doctor's registration before a locum.
Annual or life licences, and certificates of good standing
MDCN offers practitioners an annual licence or a life licence. It also issues certificates of good standing, alongside provisional, full and temporary or limited registration.
For a clinic, the distinctions are practical:
| What MDCN issues | Why the clinic cares |
|---|---|
| Annual licence | Renews every year; the clinic needs the current year's licence on file |
| Life licence | Confirm its terms with the doctor and keep a copy on file |
| Certificate of good standing | Useful when a hospital, HMO or other third party asks for proof of the doctor's standing |
| Provisional, full, temporary or limited registration | Check that the type of registration fits the role you are offering |
Keep a record, for each doctor, of which licence they hold, its renewal date if it is annual, and their registration type.
Paying only through approved channels
MDCN states that all fees for its services must be paid through its web portal, at portal.mdcn.gov.ng, or the Remita payment platform. It says that a practitioner who pays in cash through persons or other unauthorised means does so at his or her own risk.
That warning has a direct lesson for clinics that handle renewals on behalf of their doctors. Never hand cash to an intermediary who offers to "process" a renewal. Pay through the portal or Remita, keep the payment reference and receipt, and file them with the licence. The MDCN website sets out its licensing services, the approved payment channels and its published lists; confirm the current fees with MDCN before you budget or pay.
Recording licence fees the clinic pays
When the clinic pays a doctor's licence fee, record it in the books like any other cost from a supplier. On Achekam, a business records supplier bills line by line with VAT; a bill without a purchase order waits for approval before it posts, and it can be paid in full or in parts from a chosen bank account.
A sensible set-up:
- One supplier for MDCN, so every licence fee the clinic pays sits in one place.
- One line per doctor on the bill, with the doctor's name and the licence year in the description, so you can see later whose licence each payment covered.
- A dedicated expense account, such as "Professional licences and registrations", so licence costs do not disappear into general expenses.
- The Remita or portal reference in the bill's reference or description, to tie the books to MDCN's receipt.
The approval step is useful too: the person who arranges the renewals enters the bill, and someone else approves it before it posts. How VAT applies to a clinic's own services is a separate question, covered in VAT on medical services and medicines in Nigeria.
Putting licences in the budget
Licence fees are predictable, which makes them easy to budget. On Achekam, a business can set a budget per account and period and compare it with actual figures from its ledger. Put the expected licence fees in the budget for the months when renewals fall due, using the fees MDCN currently lists. When the month comes, the comparison shows whether every renewal was paid. Building the rest of the year's budget is covered in setting a practice budget and checking it monthly.
Keeping each doctor's licence on file
Achekam's Document Centre is a folder-based store where a business uploads files or whole folders, previews, renames, moves, tags, archives and searches them, and where a new version keeps the earlier ones. For licences, that suggests:
- a folder per doctor, holding the licence, any certificate of good standing, the registration certificate and the payment receipts;
- each year's renewed licence uploaded as a new version, so the history of every year is kept;
- the expiry date in the file name or a tag, so a search finds every licence due in a given month;
- the folder archived, not deleted, when a doctor leaves.
Achekam does not renew licences, check MDCN's lists or connect to the portal. Those remain the clinic's and the doctors' tasks.
A renewal calendar for the clinic
List every doctor and dentist who practises in the clinic, with their licence type, renewal date and who pays the fee. Set reminders ahead of each renewal, pay only through the portal or Remita, and file each new licence the day it arrives. When the next HMO or hospital asks for proof, the answer is a search, not a hunt.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
