VPN access service disrupted: e-prescription and other services not working

Since this Wednesday morning, the VPN access service of Arvato Systems Digital GmbH has been experiencing disruptions again. “Arvato is already analyzing the problem to eliminate the cause as quickly as possible,” says Gematik. At the beginning of the month, an “intensive error analysis” revealed an Internet fault with the VPN access service. Insured people, doctors, and pharmacists may therefore experience restrictions when accessing telematics infrastructure (TI) services.

For example, patients will not be able to fill e-prescriptions. However, other applications, such as the electronic certificate of incapacity for work or the electronic doctor's letter, are also affected. The disruptions are not an isolated case. Practices across Germany are repeatedly reporting outages, delays, and issues with access to electronic patient files (ePA), e-prescriptions, and other digital applications.

It is often not clear to users where the cause lies – with the health insurance company, the central infrastructure, or the practice's own software. Currently, for example, there is also a issue with Secunet connectors whose certificate had been given an extension.

Connector workaround

Secunet and Gematik recommend a workaround for anyone struggling with the Secunet faults. Secunet is currently “working with partners in the field to test the sustainability of the workaround that has been developed”, the company said when asked by heise online. The test will take about two days. Secunet provides details of the process on its website. It is unclear how many connectors are affected.

“On the open market, you wouldn't pay money for this kind of performance,” GP Dr. Mike Müller-Glamann recently told Ärztenachrichtendienst. “Anyone expecting completely smooth technical processes will currently be disappointed,” he concluded. In addition, few patients have actively used the ePA to date, as a report by the company health insurance funds had also shown.

According to Müller-Glamann, many patients would also be shocked as soon as they learned that sensitive information may also be accessible to other healthcare providers. “Anyone who doesn't use the ePA app and doesn't consciously decide who can see which data is being driven around like an incapacitated lemming in the healthcare system,” says Müller-Glamann.

Mandatory from October

From October 1, 2025, the use of electronic patient records (ePA) will be mandatory for medical practices. However, experience from the test regions, for example in Hamburg, already shows that the digital future of healthcare is still struggling with considerable teething problems.

(mack)