Let’s take a quick look back: For most pharmacies, the originally planned redemption methods for e-prescriptions would probably have been sufficient: Gematik app, token printout and, for a little over a year, the insurance card (eGK) that can be inserted into the local pharmacy . Since April 17, 2024 at the latest, there has been another redemption method called CardLink, which for a long time was reserved exclusively for Dutch mail-order pharmacies, while at the same time the transmission of the token through third-party apps was massively restricted due to the entry into force of the Digital Act (DigiG) on March 26, 2024 became. In August, Gesund.de became the first German pharmacy portal to be able to transmit e-prescriptions via CardLink, and many other providers are now also able to do this using Gedisa’s infrastructure, which is known as an “industry solution”.
With CardLink, the insured person’s master data is read out via NFC (“near field communication”) via an app installed on the patient’s smartphone and transferred to a previously selected pharmacy. There the e-prescription is retrieved from the Gematik server and displayed to the patient in the app. Unlike the token, which is a 2D barcode indecipherable by the human eye, CardLink patients have access to all prescription information. Although it sounds comfortable and convenient, in practice it often still has its quirks: Depending on the mobile phone, the insurance card has to be held in a different place; it often only works on the second or third attempt. This is not a user experience that makes you want more.
