E-prescription in health insurance app: Techniker gets first approval
Techniker was the first health insurance company to receive approval for the integration of the e-prescription function into its health insurance app.
(Image: FOTO Eak/Shutterstock.com)
Techniker Krankenkasse is the first health insurance company to offer e-prescriptions for its policyholders in the TK app. The e-prescription function will be available to TK policyholders from June. In contrast to the method of redeeming prescriptions using a health card or a paper printout, insured persons will be able to "view their prescriptions themselves at any time and have an overview of the prescriptions issued", as with the Gematik e-prescription app, writes TK. Access to the app is via the TK Ident app, as a spokesperson told heise online.
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Health insurance companies are waiting for approval
The Digital Act to accelerate digitalization in the healthcare sector, which has been in force since the end of March, also allows health insurance companies to integrate the e-prescription function into their app. Other health insurance companies have also applied to the future "Digital Agency for Health", Gematik, for approval to integrate the function. In future, for example, AOK policyholders will also be able to use the function via the "AOK Mein Leben" app. At Barmer, the e-prescription will be available in the "Barmer eCare" app.
So far, only a few people are using the "fully digital" e-prescription via the e-prescription app. This is partly due to the teething troubles with the e-prescription. For example, there were increasing problems with the health ID at the mandatory launch of the e-prescription for doctors, as a result of which it was not possible to log in to the services of the telematics infrastructure (TI), the healthcare network. However, there have also been other disruptions and failures. Just recently, the Chief Operating Officer of Gematik, Björn Kalweit, announced on Linkedin that there were "no TI disruptions to the TI for healthcare providers and insured persons". As the last entry on TI disruptions is from 24 May, Gematik had been "increasingly concerned" that the WhatsApp channel, in which the disruptions are also documented for insured persons, was "broken or deactivated". The disruptions of a trust service provider that have been occurring regularly since January have also been permanently resolved since April 19.
Docmorris, Shop Apotheke and co. get serious
Since online pharmacies have also been able to accept e-prescriptions via the Cardlink function, they have been heavily promoting it. DocMorris and Shop Apotheke, for example, are offering 10 euros to customers who redeem their first e-prescription via Cardlink. Anyone who has installed the DocMorris app, for example, will also receive corresponding push notifications. The advertising also comes to some as flyers. "We are currently experiencing a time that is taking the air out of many member pharmacies," commented the Marketing Association of German Pharmacists (MVDA), which , according to Apotheke Adhoc, intends to sue. According to the MVDA, the 10-euro bonus violates the price maintenance of prescription drugs. The MVDA also wants to write a letter to Günter Jauch and Christian Ulmen, the faces of the advertising campaign.
(mack)