KBV chief Gassen proposes self-pay private appointments for statutory health patients
Summary
- Andreas Gassen, head of the Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung, proposes letting statutory health insurance patients buy appointments in private consultation hours as self-payers.
- He warns the government's fee cuts totalling three billion euros hit specialties like ENT, orthopedics, cardiology, radiology, and rheumatology hardest.
- The federal government's austerity program for statutory health insurance aims to brake the strong rise of contributions financed from wages and salaries.
- Gassen shows willingness to compromise on how many free appointments doctors must report in the future.
Reactions
- Andreas Gassen forecasts statutory patients will have to pay for treatments out of their own pocket to avoid longer waiting times.
- Gassen says no one can expect medical practices to carry on as before and that practices have no infinite obligation to provide services.
- Gassen proposes agreeing with health insurers a contingent of appointments for cases that are medically truly urgent.
- Gassen sets the condition that whoever orders pays: if doctors guarantee appointments, insurers must guarantee the remuneration.
Timeline newest first
KBV chief Andreas Gassen proposes letting statutory health insurance patients buy self-pay appointments in private consultation hours to avoid longer waits.
Sources newest first
Kassenärzte schlagen Selbstzahler-Termine für Kassenpatienten vor
Spiegel reports that Andreas Gassen, head of the Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung, proposes letting statutory health insurance patients buy self-pay appointments in private consultation hours to avoid longer waits, saying they would be treated like private patients at their own cost. He warns the three-billion-euro fee cuts hit specialties like ENT, orthopedics, and radiology hardest, but shows willingness to compromise on required free appointments.
Background newest first
Healthcare in Germany - Wikipedia
wikipedia.org· 18y
A Wikipedia article describes Germany's universal multi-payer healthcare system, covering its origins in Bismarck's 1883 health insurance law, its statutory and private insurance branches, income-based contributions, provider payment, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, and health outcomes. It adds attributed claims on funding, waiting times, and experts' forecasts of rising contribution rates, and predicts a third of Germans will be 60 or older by 2050.
