Ten billion euros are missing: Gass: Lauterbach reform does not save clinics

Ten billion euros are missing
Gass: Lauterbach reform does not save clinics

Karl Lauterbach is currently pushing a whole lot of projects in the healthcare sector. The clinics would hardly benefit from his reform, complains hospital boss Gass. On the contrary, hospitals are at risk of dying.

The CEO of the German Hospital Society, Gerald Gass, is skeptical about the hospital reforms by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. “The planned reform is not suitable for preventing the disorderly death of hospitals. The minister only wants to redistribute the money, but does not want to make any additional money available to the hospital system for years,” Gass told the “Rheinische Post”. Nevertheless, he urged the reform to be rushed: “I doubt whether there will be an agreement by the summer.” There is political poker between the federal and state governments. “Time is of the essence, the clinics are missing ten billion euros by the end of this year.”

Lauterbach is aiming for more concrete proposals for the planned hospital reform over the summer. One thing is already clear: the core of the remuneration system should be changed with lump sums for treatment cases in order to relieve clinics of economic pressure. In order not to be dependent on more and more cases, they should get a larger share just for the provision of services. The focus is also on classifying the clinic network into three levels of care and financing them accordingly – from basic care close to home to a second level with other offers up to maximum care providers such as university clinics.

With a view to the discussion about a possible fee for patients in the emergency room, Gass said: “In the emergency room there are sometimes patients who could go to the family doctor the next day. Clinics are not responsible for disorders.” But before you impose a fine on these patients, you need a central control center that assesses where patients are best taken care of. In April, the chairman of the board of directors of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Andreas Gassen, discussed a fee for patients who come to the emergency room without a prior telephone assessment. Gass said a fee could only be the second step if people didn’t use the suggested central control room. “But we have to prevent low-income people from struggling with stomach ache for days because they can’t pay the emergency fee.”

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