Health insurance reform: Specialists threaten a four-day week

GKV reform

Specialists threaten a four-day week

Doctors see themselves as being overly burdened by the planned health insurance reform. Now specialists are threatening to restrict their opening hours.

That on the part of the Federal Government The planned GKV savings law continues to be met with great rejection by the medical profession. The doctors are expecting high losses in fees due to the elimination of surcharges and a cap and are now threatening consequences.

The leading association of medical specialists in Germany (SpiFa) announced that from next year specialists will adjust their practice times. The four-day week will be the rule in specialist practices, and citizens will have to prepare for “no longer being able to go to the specialist every day of the week,” says a SpiFa letter.

The association justifies the drastic step with the expected loss of sales. “With around 20-30% loss of sales due to the law, these changes are unavoidable. This is the only way to save costs and mitigate sales losses somewhat.” On the fifth day, the specialists would have to turn to other tasks in order to make up for the loss in sales. SpiFa mentions the writing of reports or the treatment of private patients and self-payers.

However, these are not available in socially disadvantaged areas. Accordingly, practices here would increasingly have to be abandoned, the association threatens.

Overall, the federal government wants to save 16 billion euros through the statutory health insurance reform next year – but this amount is not enough, as the health insurance companies’ deficit has now grown to 19 billion euros. The federal government is currently discussing where the missing three billion euros should come from.

According to current plans, savings of 2.7 billion euros will be made for outpatient care and thus for doctors. In order to achieve this, the draft law provides for the following measures:

• Strict budgeting: Remuneration should be capped for all medical services – even for those that were previously paid extra-budgetary at fixed prices.
• Removal of incentives: Financial surcharges for open consultation hours with specialists or for making appointments particularly quickly should be eliminated.
• Remuneration for filling out the electronic patient file should also be eliminated.

Next Friday, July 10th, the Bundestag wants to make a final decision on the statutory health insurance reform.