2024-03-19 23:42:57
Health Minister Lauterbach wants to change the payment models for clinics. He hopes this will result in more uniform quality. However, there is clear criticism of this.
The planned hospital reform in Germany is becoming more concrete. Karl Lauterbach’s (SPD) Federal Ministry of Health has drawn up a draft bill, which was first reported by “Bild” and which is also available to the German Press Agency.
The reform is intended to introduce a new compensation method. Hospitals should then no longer treat as many patients as possible for reasons of revenue. Today, clinics receive a flat rate in euros per patient or treatment case. These per-case flat rates should be reduced. In return, there should be fixed amounts for the provision of staff, an emergency room or necessary medical technology.
In the future, the clinics should receive 60 percent of the remuneration simply for providing services. The basis for financing by the health insurance companies should be more precisely defined service groups. They are intended to ensure uniform quality standards.
Vote scheduled for April
According to the draft bill, extra money will be estimated from 2027, for example for the provision of pediatric medicine wards (288 million euros), obstetric wards (120 million euros), stroke wards (35 million euros) and intensive care units (30 million euros). The federal states are responsible for hospital planning.
According to the draft bill, internal medicine and general surgery wards should be reachable by car in a maximum of 30 minutes. For the other performance groups, the travel time should be a maximum of 40 minutes. The planning should also take into account the number of residents who would be affected by longer travel times if there are no corresponding services in their local area.
Embed
Most recently it was said that the draft law would be passed in the cabinet on April 24th. According to Lauterbach, “major quality deficits” should be reduced through more specialization. Today, a third of cancer treatments are carried out in those two thirds of German clinics that do not understand this well due to a lack of experience. The result is serious complications such as sepsis (blood poisoning), said Lauterbach at the end of January. The reform will significantly change the hospital landscape. So far there are over-supplied cities and under-supplied areas in rural regions.
Embed
Patient advocates criticize the draft
Shortly after the draft became known on Saturday, the board of the Patient Protection Foundation, Eugen Brysch, expressed criticism. He told the AFP news agency that Lauterbach was “carrying out his reform on the drawing board and with the slide rule.” There is a lack of “a view of the practice and of the patient”.
The patient advocate doubted “whether quality can be measured solely by the number of employees in relation to the number of treatment cases, their frequency and the complication and mortality rate.” He criticized the draft law as lacking a binding requirement to provide each patient with a case manager. “Everyday life in the hospital continues to resemble a jungle.”
Brysch further complained that there was no coordination between patients, relatives and employees. This “misery” is characterized by a lack of contact persons, postponements of medical examinations, long waiting times and canceled appointments. Those who suffer are patients and relatives, said Brysch.