Gematik GmbH, which is responsible for the digital health infrastructure in Germany, wants to successfully bill at least 30,000 e-prescriptions for the test phase planned for the first quarter. Originally, the electronic prescription should lead to savings of 100 million euros a year and, above all, save unnecessary ways and time – so the theory. However, the deadlines for introducing the e-prescription have been pushed back again and again for years – its start was most recently planned for the beginning of January 2022.
Health insurance companies had already assured close cooperation with pharmacies in advance for the implementation of the e-prescription. This is intended to prevent technical errors in billing, which could result in the costs or surcharges for medicines already issued by pharmacies not being reimbursed by the health insurance company.
All those involved should now regularly provide data on the current situation, equipment and operational readiness. Gematik wants to closely monitor the test phase and also focus on the evaluation of the test reports. The test phase is to be followed by a comprehensive introduction of the electronic prescription.
responsibilities unclear
In an interview, a former product manager at Gematik, Mark Langguth, told the specialist magazine for health telematics “E-Health-Com” that only two out of 100 health insurance companies in the e-prescription model region took part in the tests. It was not even one of the larger health insurance companies. In addition, neither overall responsibility nor an all-coordinating body existed.
“The entire e-prescription process ultimately consists of four sub-processes: the creation of the e-prescription by the doctor, transmission to the prescription server and from there to the pharmacy, forwarding to the pharmacy computer center and then forwarding to the health insurance company,” said Langguth .
Therefore, there would be a lot of “cross-process, detailed coordination needs” and if this does not take place, the entire process will fail. Failure can then be blamed on the other party – because there is no one who is responsible. Therefore, in addition to more systematic feedback loops, Langguth also calls for responsible contact persons for the practices who can be contacted in the event of a failure of the telematics infrastructure.
Goals not achieved in the past
In the run-up, there was already harsh criticism of the previous test phases for the e-prescription. On the one hand because of the small number of tests carried out, on the other hand because the few tests actually carried out then rarely ran smoothly. According to the board of directors of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), Dr. Thomas Kriedel, in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, “only 42 made it across the finish line” instead of the 1000 real, billed e-prescriptions.
[Update 27.01.2022, 13:00 Uhr: Im Nachgang hat die Gematik den Begriff “Formfehler” durch den Begriff “technische Fehler” ersetzt.]
(mack)