Digital healthcare law enacted on 11/07/2019

The federal government perceives the digitalization as a chance for the healthcare of the German population. The digital healthcare law shall implement and realize these chances for the citizens.

Therefore, patients can use healthcare apps by a prescription of a physician in the future. Already at this stage today, many patients are using apps which support their regular pharmaceutical taking or documentation of blood glucose values. As of now, patients shall receive these apps by a physician’s prescription. The statutory health insurances shall pay the emerging costs and the Market Access for app manufacturers will be facilitated non-bureaucratically. After the assessment on data security, privacy protection and functionality by the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM), the appropriate apps will be reimbursed by the payers for one year. During this year, the manufacturers are asked to prove to BfArM the improvement of the patients’ healthcare. If this is provided, the manufacturer is allowed to negotiate a Reimbursement with the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds.

Moreover, the digital healthcare law contains the following points:

• connecting more service providers (e.g. of nursing and care) to the tele-infrastructure (“Telematikinfrastruktur”)
• Supporting the use of telemedicine (e.g. by a simplification of web-based consultation hours
• Simplifying administration processes via digitalization
• Providing more opportunities for payers to support digital innovations
• Maintaining and further developing the innovation fund of 200 million € per year
• Establishing a process to transfer successful projects of the innovation funds into standard care
• Enabling an improved use of health data for research issues.

Read more here on Market Access.

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