Overview

• From October 1, physicians, clinics and pharmacies must populate and use the ePA unless patients have opted out.
• Gematik reports more than 93% of practices, dental practices and pharmacies are technically equipped, with about 61,600 doctor practices participating and roughly 22 million documents uploaded this year.
• Active use by patients remains limited, with around 1.37 million registrations among 45 million pre-created records at major insurers, and access control requires app sign-in after identity verification.
• When a health card is read at check-in, practices receive a default 90-day access window to read and add records, which patients can later adjust in their insurer app.
• Practices report mixed experiences including outages and software differences, hospitals are expected to integrate more slowly into 2026, and authorities plan a next stage for pseudonymized research use with an opt-out.