Since April 1, 2025, doctors and psychotherapists have been allowed to conduct up to 50% of their treatment cases per quarter exclusively by video consultation, with the previous distinction between known and unknown patients abolished. The SVDGV, among others, sees this in a statement as a success for embedding patient-oriented digital healthcare.
At the same time, there was a judgment against a certified provider of a telemedicine platform which also acts as an appointment broker for video consultations for people with statutory health insurance. On April 29, 2025, the Social Court of Munich ruled that the following aspects, among others, are inadmissible:
- Creating a patient record belonging to the platform,
- Mandatory registration of patients in order to use the video consultation,
- Selecting doctors by appointment availability (restricting the “free choice of doctor”),
- Success-based remuneration of the platform depending on whether a video consultation takes place
- Transmission of symptoms before treatment begins
The court based this on breaches of contractual and professional rules as well as data protection and competition law.
The judgment is a first-instance decision and relates only to the specific provider and only to its offering in Bavaria, but it could become relevant for other platforms too. In the meantime, the telemedicine platform offers a website specifically for patients in Bavaria, who now have access to a considerably reduced range of services.
The lawyers at Luther published a detailed, critical assessment of the judgment at Aufsehenerregendes Urteil des Sozialgerichts München zur Telemedizin | LUTHER Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH