Can you only redeem electronic prescriptions in pharmacies from January?
What the government has now agreed on
Created: 12/21/2021, 4:19 PM
The e-prescription is currently being tested for feasibility in test mode.
© Mohssen Assanimoghaddam / dpa
Statutory health insurance recipients receive hundreds of millions of paper prescriptions every year.
The switch to digital prescriptions began this year as a test phase.
The major e-prescription project should be accelerated from January onwards.
But nothing will come of it, at least for now.
The mandatory e-prescription for January has been postponed.
It has become clear that "
the necessary technical systems are not yet available across the board,
" says a letter from the Federal Ministry of Health, which the dpa has received and which is dated December 20.
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"Apotheke Adhoc" had previously reported. According to a ministry representative, availability is a prerequisite for the mandatory introduction. Now “
the controlled test and pilot operation is to be continued and expanded step by step in the coming weeks
”. A new date from which the obligation will take effect has not yet been set.
The letter is addressed to the shareholders of Gematik, i.e. the company responsible for the e-prescription *.
The shareholders include the German Medical Association and the umbrella association of statutory health insurances as well as the Federal Ministry of Health, which holds the majority in Gematik.
There had been strong concerns among the medical community - the original schedule was believed to be unrealistic.
To a certain extent, these concerns are now being taken into account.
Mammoth project to end the paper mess
Digital prescription is a mammoth project in the healthcare sector that has had teething problems for a long time.
The Germany-wide compulsory start from January was initially retained, but the obligation was weakened: In November Gematik announced that it would only apply the obligation to those "
who are technically capable
".
But even this weak requirement is now being put on hold, as the ministry's letter shows.
With the e-prescription, the paperwork for prescriptions is to be ended
: In the future, legally insured
persons
should receive a QR code, either via smartphone or printed out.
(dpa) * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
