Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach has received criticism for his recent announcement on the e-prescription. He stated that those with statutory health insurance can redeem their e-prescription through the electronic health card (eGK) from July 1, which Gematik had already announced. Gematik has confirmed that the redemption process will become available at the end of July, and 80% of pharmacies in Germany are expected to be connected to the system. However, stakeholders have criticized Lauterbach for his misleading statements as the conditions in the practices of contract doctors are not yet in place nationwide.
The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians also criticizes the fact that not all medical practices can issue e-prescriptions from July 1. The doctors send the e-prescription to the e-prescription specialist service via the telematics infrastructure (TI), which requires doctors to implement e-prescription and pharmacies to be “e-prescription-ready.”
Currently, most e-prescriptions are issued via a printout of the token and redeemed in the pharmacies. In contrast to earlier versions of the e-prescription specifications of Gematik, the card’s authenticity is also checked using the current redemption method proposed by the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI).
The BfDI and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) approve the new proposed method for the e-prescription, and adjustments to the hardware are not necessary. Dr. Peter Haas criticized the BfDI last year due to its veto on the redemption method specified at the time for the e-prescription. The fact that the BfDI was insulted for the simplest of demands was therefore something that raised concerns.
In addition, policyholders can also show a QR code-like e-prescription token to pharmacies after visiting the doctor to receive the medication. In exceptional cases, doctors can also send the e-prescription token directly to the pharmacies, as the Deutsche Apothekerzeitung writes.
The deadlines for the nationwide start of e-prescriptions have been pushed back again and again in recent years, but the distribution is still mixed. By redeeming the eGK, Lauterbach hopes for a significant boost in digitization. Just a few weeks ago, he had announced the nationwide e-prescription for 2024.
