About 100 critical workers were turned back when trying to cross the border into Albury on Thursday and told to fly to Sydney instead, as a result of a "technological glitch" in the app used by NSW Police.
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Sonographer Heather Welch had been using her critical services permit to travel to work from her Mount Beauty home without issue, until Thursday.
Police told her she could not go through the checkpoint because their system said her permit had a clause to travel by air to Sydney, so she turned around and spoke to Service NSW in Wodonga.
"They said 'there's no proper permit for you to cross by car, that's the issue'," she said.
"The police officer said they updated their system and technically these permits shouldn't have let us across the whole time, but it has ... It's just been flagged today that we're not supposed to be travelling across, even though that's a bit silly."
Ms Welch had to cancel her list of patients who had been due to get ultrasounds, because there was no one else to do her job.
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"It affects my job, but it affects people's health and that's the number one priority," she said.
She was hopeful of having the issue resolved by next week, as Mount Beauty falls outside the 50-kilometre border bubble and she will still need the critical services permit.
Staff at Senator Bridget McKenzie's Wodonga office were working to help those turned back, who included health workers, tradespeople and NBN contractors.
Senator McKenzie said she had been in discussions with the offices of the NSW police and health ministers on Thursday.
"We're working very hard to get this resolved," she said.
"It sounds like there's a technological glitch - the police have updated their scanners."
Officers received an alert on their devices saying the permit holders had to travel to NSW via Sydney.
"There's some ambiguity around the definitions and languages, which is confusing a lot of people," Senator McKenzie said.
"I just find it incredibly frustrating for our community, I think we're seeing the economic toll.
"It's not just our agricultural workforce, it's across retail, health, education - we've got year 11 and 12 students who aren't being able to access their teachers in a way that they need to prior to exams ... There is a lot of angst."
She said border communities were being shutdown harder than Melbourne hot spots with stage four restrictions.
"I have been raising for over a month that these border closures are not based on medical advice," she said.
