“Could you please send me my medical report by e-mail?” This request is part of everyday life in medical practices, care centers, laboratories and hospitals. Patients do not want to wait several days for a letter or return to the facility simply to collect their documents. They expect diagnostic reports, laboratory results and medical letters to be available digitally and without delay.
This expectation is clear: According to a 2024 Bitkom study, 89% of people in Germany support the digitalization of the healthcare system. As many as 71% would like to see faster progress. The downside is that almost one in two people also feel overwhelmed by digital healthcare services.
The findings show that patients want digital services – but not complicated digital processes.
For practice teams and hospital staff, this creates a clear requirement: Medical documents need to reach the intended recipient quickly, without compromising confidentiality or data protection. In many cases, an unprotected e-mail attachment does not meet this standard.
Medical reports should therefore be transmitted through a channel that protects sensitive content, restricts access to the intended recipient and remains easy to use.
Sending medical reports is part of patient care – not just another administrative process
The cyberattack on external billing service provider unimed in April 2026 demonstrates just how sensitive data flows in the healthcare sector are. Numerous hospitals across Germany were affected. Data relating to privately insured patients and self-pay patients was stolen. In addition to master data, this included billing information that could, in some cases, allow conclusions to be drawn about diagnoses and treatments.
In this instance, the attack did not affect the direct transmission of medical reports. However, it highlights a fundamental point: The protection of patient data does not end at the doors of a medical practice or hospital. It must also be ensured when information is shared with service providers, other healthcare facilities and patients.
This applies to complex interfaces between hospital systems just as much as it does to the seemingly simple request to send a medical report at short notice.
A typical scenario: The patient needs the report today
It is a situation that occurs hundreds of times every day: Following an examination, the medical report is available as a PDF. The patient needs it for an appointment with a specialist the next morning and asks for it to be sent immediately.
For a medical assistant, the process initially appears straightforward: enter the e-mail address, attach the document and send the message. However, a single typing error may result in the report being sent to an unauthorized recipient. Once it has been sent, the attachment can no longer be reliably recalled or controlled.
In a hospital, the same situation may arise as part of discharge management. A patient may need a discharge letter, additional treatment records or an extensive set of documents. A laboratory or radiology practice may need to send several diagnostic reports or particularly large files.
The documents may differ, but the key questions remain the same:
Has the recipient been clearly identified?
Is the file adequately protected during transmission?
Can access be restricted by time or through technical measures?
Is it possible to verify whether the documents have been received?
Is the process easy for the patient to understand and use?
Can medical reports be sent by e-mail?
As a general rule, there is no blanket prohibition on sending medical reports by e-mail. However, the transmission method and the safeguards used must be appropriate to the risk and sensitivity of the data being transferred. After all, data concerning health is classified as a special category of personal data under Article 9 of the GDPR.
Medical practices, hospitals and other healthcare providers must therefore implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect this data against unauthorized access, loss and accidental disclosure. Data protection authorities – including the European Data Protection Board – have made it clear that unencrypted e-mail is not suitable for transmitting medical documents such as medical reports or X-ray images. Sensitive content generally requires a higher level of protection.
Encryption during transmission is not the only relevant factor. The identity of the recipient, the possibilities for accessing the file after it has been sent and the traceability of the process are also essential elements of secure medical document transmission.
Digitalization in healthcare: Progress with persistent gaps
Digitalization in the German healthcare sector is more advanced than some public debates suggest. According to the German 2025 PraxisBarometer (“practice digitalization barometer”), 87% of medical practices were already receiving electronic medical letters. 61% used the KIM communication service. Digital communication with patients was also increasing: In 52% of practices, communication with patients was either completely or predominantly digital.
Hospitals have also made clear progress. Germany’s average DigitalRadar score increased from 33.3 points in 2021 to 55 points in 2026.
Digitalization has reached medical practices – but not every patient process
In 2025, communication between medical practices and hospitals was predominantly digital in only 13% of facilities. Documents are therefore often already available digitally within an organization but still reach the next healthcare provider or the patient by post, fax, conventional e-mail or through manual workarounds.
This is where expectations and reality meet. Patients are accustomed to digital services in many areas of their lives. In healthcare, however, the digital provision of documents still often depends on the individual facility and the specific process involved.
The organizational requirements vary. In a smaller medical practice, a limited number of employees may be responsible for patient admission, administration and document transmission. In a hospital, the hospital information system, patient portal, telematics infrastructure, discharge management and external service providers all need to work together. Regardless of the size of the organization, a clear and secure process is required for the final step to the recipient.
Where conventional e-mail attachments reach their limits
E-mail attachments remain popular because both healthcare staff and patients are familiar with them. However, sending sensitive patient documents by e-mail involves several weaknesses:
Misdirected messages: An incorrectly entered or automatically completed recipient address may result in a personal data breach.
Lack of access control: The attachment can be saved, copied and forwarded. Access cannot be restricted to a defined period.
Limited traceability: Sending the message does not prove that the intended patient has retrieved the documents. Read receipts are also optional and must be actively confirmed by the recipient.
File size limits: Extensive document sets, or large files can quickly exceed the limits of the sender’s or recipient’s mailbox.
Insufficient encryption: Standard e-mail encryption is not considered sufficiently secure for sensitive medical data. Using e-mail in a data protection-compliant manner generally requires a more complex process, often involving the exchange and management of certificates.
In summary, e-mail is a useful communication channel for everyday, non-sensitive information and for notifying recipients. As a means of transporting highly sensitive files, however, it often provides too little control. Unencrypted attachments are particularly unsuitable for patient data.
ZIP files and passwords are not a sustainable solution
Medical facilities frequently use another method as a workaround: Attachments are packaged as ZIP files, protected with a password and sent by e-mail. The required password is then communicated by telephone, text message or in a separate message.
This is better than sending a completely unprotected attachment, but in practice it often merely shifts the problem and creates additional work and risks:
The practice team must create passwords and communicate them through a separate channel.
Patients need to download and extract the files. This does not always work smoothly on smartphones or older devices.
If the password is lost or entered incorrectly, additional queries and administrative work follow.
The example of password-protected ZIP files shows that a digital process is not automatically a good process. Since almost half of the population feels at least partly overwhelmed by the digitalization of healthcare, a secure process must also be clear and easy to use.
KIM, the electronic patient record or a patient portal: Which solution is intended for which purpose?
Specialized digital infrastructures already exist within the German healthcare system. However, they serve different purposes.
KIM (“Communication in the Medical Sector”) – enables medical documents to be exchanged securely between registered and authenticated participants in Germany’s telematics infrastructure. A medical practice can use KIM, for example, to send an electronic medical letter or diagnostic report to another practice, laboratory or hospital. KIM is not intended for the routine transmission of documents to a patient’s private e-mail account.
The German Electronic Patient Record, ePA (“elektronische Patientenakte”), serves as a digital repository and source of information for health data. Medical practices and hospitals can make diagnostic reports, laboratory results, medical letters and discharge letters available in the ePA. Patients can access the information using the app provided by their health insurance company. The ePA is therefore a central element of digital healthcare, but it does not replace every short-term communication and document transmission scenario.
Patient portals support processes specific to an individual healthcare facility, such as digital admission, appointment management or the provision of documents by a hospital. They are particularly useful when patients interact regularly with the same facility and the portal is integrated into its existing systems.
Secure business filesharing is relevant when files need to be sent directly and in a controlled manner to an external recipient and no established KIM, ePA or portal is available. The recipient may be the patient, an authorized representative or another external party.
All of these channels have a legitimate role in everyday healthcare and can exist alongside one another. The decisive factor when choosing a solution is how well it fits the intended recipient and the specific process.
Secure filesharing: The notification remains an e-mail, the medical report does not
With a secure filesharing solution, the document is not attached directly to the e-mail. Instead, the medical report is made available through a protected cloud platform. The patient receives an e-mail notification and access to the documents intended for them.
The familiar communication channel therefore remains in place: The patient is notified by e-mail and can retrieve the document through a web browser. The sensitive file itself, however, is not stored in the mailbox as an uncontrolled attachment.
This gives the medical facility greater control over the process:
Access can be restricted to the intended recipient.
Additional recipient verification measures can be applied.
Files can be assigned an expiry date.
Large volumes of documents can be transmitted in a single process.
Receipt and retrieval can be tracked more effectively.
With professional providers, files can also be updated after they have been sent.
This combines patients’ expectations of fast digital communication with the data protection and security requirements of the healthcare sector.
Sending medical documents securely with netfiles Send
netfiles Send is not a specialized medical application and does not replace KIM, the ePA or a clinical patient portal. It is designed for secure business filesharing – in other words, for the controlled transmission of confidential files to external recipients.
This is precisely where netfiles Send adds value when sending medical reports: Medical practices, medical care centres, laboratories and hospitals receive an easy-to-use transmission channel for situations that are not covered, or not readily covered, by existing industry-specific applications.
With netfiles Send, diagnostic reports, medical and discharge letters, laboratory documents and extensive sets of documents can be sent quickly and easily. Depending on the requirements, recipients can be verified, transfers can be protected with a password and an expiry date, and receipt confirmations can be used. Files with a combined size of up to 150 GB can be provided in a single transfer.
The process is particularly simple for both staff and patients: Select the files, enter the recipient’s e-mail address, define the required level of protection and send the transfer. The patient receives a notification and can access the documents through a web browser without installing any additional software.
Conclusion: Digital patient services need secure and simple processes
Patients want to receive medical reports on time, open them without difficulty and trust that their health data is protected. Whether the ePA, a patient portal or a secure filesharing service is the appropriate solution depends on the specific healthcare context.
A conventional, unprotected e-mail attachment should never be the standard method for transmitting sensitive medical documents.
A professionally designed digital process for sending medical reports demonstrates that the facility regards data protection not merely as a formal obligation, but as an integral part of trusted patient communication. At the same time, clearly defined digital processes can reduce the workload for employees and replace error-prone workarounds.
With netfiles Send, medical practices, medical care centres, laboratories and hospitals can transmit sensitive documents to patients and external recipients in a controlled manner – without unprotected e-mail attachments or complicated additional software.
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