The on-line active subsidiary pharmaotheken.de of the parent company German pharmacist publishing house will cooperate immediately with the Telemedizinanbieter Medgate, which brings 20 years experience in the Telemedizin with itself. Medgate will use telemedicine to refer to e-prescriptions prescribed by a telemedical doctor to in-patient pharmacies in the vicinity of patients‘ homes. Following a teleconsultation with a physician, patients themselves can order prescribed drugs online with just a few clicks at an on-site pharmacy and then start taking their medication immediately. A courier service is also available to patients for any deliveries. The patient only needs the Medgate app to trigger the electronic prescription. The Medgate app is also available for making appointments with the doctor after the patient has downloaded it from the app store. The cooperation gives office-pharmacies an advantage over mail-order pharmacies, as Thomas Koch, head of apotheken.de, explains. The Medgate company has already established 9.3 million patient contacts worldwide so that e-prescriptions from online doctor’s consultations can be sent directly to in-patient pharmacies if the patient so wishes. First of all, the service will first benefit privately insured patients, and then in the near future, those with statutory health insurance will also be able to enjoy the telemedical services. Leading private health insurers (PKV) already cover the treatment costs of a doctor working online, to which the Süddeutsche Krankenversicherung (SDK) and others will soon belong, the publishing house promises. Names were not mentioned.
