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Chaos at Medisign: SMC-B cards delayed-practices in need!
Opening of the new medisign branch in Stötteritz is delayed due to problems with SMC-B cards and inadequate communication.
Chaos at Medisign: SMC-B cards delayed-practices in need!
The opening of a new branch in the healthcare system in mid-September turned out to be problematic because the required SmartCard (SMC-B) was missing. Loud Pharmacy adhoc was already informed by Medisign on September 8, about technical difficulties that led to this incident.
A short-term promise from Medisign to send the SMC-B card via Express gave the affected practices hope. This card finally arrived in the week of September 15 by courier. A cover letter referred to a technical contact person, but the accessibility of Medisign was problematic. Telephone calls and emails were unsuccessful. The portal was accessible again the following weekend, but the card was marked for activation, which meant that the associated pin letter was missing.
Criticism of communication and incapacity to act
The difficulties continued: daily emails and calls on September 22nd and 23rd remained unanswered. The missing PIN letter was only delivered on Thursday, which further complicated the situation. In the meantime, a couple was able to work in normal operation thanks to an SMC-B card from D-Trust, while other affected practices suffered from uncertainty.
As a result, Groitzsch planned to exchange ideas with other victims in order to discuss possible claims for damages. The criticism of Medisign referred not only to the inability to act, but also to the communication that is insufficiently perceived. Medisign itself apologized for the delays and announced improvements by putting a more powerful production road into operation on September 27.
Problems in the telematics system
The difficulties are symptomatic of a bigger problem in healthcare. How Administrator.de reports, smart cards (SMC-B) are indispensable for the use of the telematics infrastructure (Ti) in healthcare and must be replaced every five years for around 500 euros. Medisign is one of the few providers of this important technology.
The company has been fighting for at least two weeks with the availability of its portal to unlock new SMC-B without communicating these problems on its website. The Medisign hotline is overloaded, and written inquiries often remain unanswered. Often, callers do not even have the option of getting into the queue, and if it succeeds, the waiting time is often over half an hour. The situation is frustrating for the employees and there are reports that they are unable to provide binding information about the reinforcement of the portal.
The challenges with which practices are faced in Germany are increasing in view of the ECC key procedure that only supports the latest SMCs from 2026. Tens of thousands of practices have to exchange their SMC-B prematurely, which increases the urgency of a functioning infrastructure.