Statutory health insurance physicians in Germany are proposing the introduction of a new fee for patients for every visit to the doctor. “Instead of a practice fee, there could be a contact fee as a co-payment for doctor visits in the future,” said the chairman of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), Andreas Gassen Picture-Newspaper. “It could be three or four euros, as in Japan for example, and should be taken into account Health insurance companies
be collected.” In this way, the cash register’s income could be increased.
The fee must be “socially acceptable so that no one is overburdened,” Gassen told the newspaper. The KBV boss also suggested the introduction of a “digital doctor guide” in order to reduce the number of unnecessary doctor visits and cut costs. This guide should advise patients and coordinate doctor’s visits in order to prevent “unnecessary double and triple treatments” of patients, said Gassen. You could set up the pilot using the number of the medical on-call service 116 117.
More co-payment in the hospital
The German Hospital Society (DKG) also spoke out in favor of higher patient contributions. The DKG board chairman Gerald Gaß said Picture-Newspaper, the additional payment for hospital stays should be doubled from 10 to 20 euros per day. “That is appropriate. The health insurance companies would then have an additional income of 800 million euros per year,” said Gaß.
In addition, in the future, patients should pay a fee of 30 to 40 euros if they visit the emergency center of a hospital without prior telephone advice, demanded Gaß. One like this Advice is provided for in the planned emergency reform.
The federal government wants to reform statutory health insurance in the new year. The aim is to limit the rising supply costs and to avoid further increases in contributions. A commission of experts is expected to present proposals for stabilizing contributions by March. Further reform proposals should follow by the end of 2026.
Patients do not participate across the board
The statutory health insurance doctors had a reintroduction of the previous practice fee for those with statutory health insurance rejected in November. A “practice fee reloaded”, as it existed around 20 years ago, would bring funds into the coffers, but in the previous way it would be “very bureaucratic and would hardly be of any use as a control element,” said KBV boss Gassen a month ago Rhenish Post said. Rather, he advocated so-called optional tariffs for those with statutory health insurance.
Also Minister of Health Nina Warken (CDU) had a new edition in November Practice fee excluded, as it was collected from 2004 to 2012. She doesn’t think a flat contact fee for every doctor’s visit or quarterly for everyone “makes sense,” said Warken. This fee “neither achieved the desired sustainable control effect nor reduced bureaucracy,” she said.
The employers’ association BDA In August, he called for such a renewed practice fee for every doctor’s visit. Federal Health Minister Warken is instead considering introducing a specialist fee in certain cases.
