The federal and state governments recently argued violently about a common line for a major hospital reform – now the rough path has been marked out. But what should the financing look like?
After the federal and state governments agreed on the cornerstones of the hospital reform, trade unions and associations called for commitments to include financial injections for clinics.
Such a transformation cannot succeed without significant investments, said the chairwoman of the Marburger Bund doctors’ union, Susanne Johna, to the “Rheinische Post”. “Anyone who thinks that the existing funds can simply be redistributed and surcharges can be granted in a few places and then it would all work out is, to put it mildly, naïve.” Even the settlement of a hospital site requires financing.
Lauterbach: “I can’t hope for that”
The plans that the federal and state governments agreed on yesterday evening essentially provide for changing the remuneration system with flat rates for treatment cases in order to relieve hospitals of the financial pressure to deal with more and more cases. Therefore, they should receive a large proportion of the remuneration simply for providing services.
The basis of the financing by the health insurance companies should be more precisely defined performance groups of the clinics – for example “cardiology” instead of rough terms like “internal medicine”. The service groups are intended to ensure uniform quality specifications, for example in terms of equipment, staff and treatment experience.
In the run-up, there had already been a dispute over demands from the federal states for an upstream extra financial injection from the federal government. Lauterbach said last night that the budget situation would be examined and added: “I can’t hope for that.”
Basic praise from the German Federation of Trade Unions
The central association of statutory health insurance companies (GKV) complained that the financial impact of the key points remained unclear. “The federal government has not made any specific financial commitments and the federal states are still not committed to financing the investment costs. This must not be at the expense of the contributors,” said Stefanie Stoff-Ahnis from the association’s board.
The German trade union federation praised the agreement in principle. However, further steps are needed to advance the structural reform in inpatient care. “It is also important to take the concerns of the employees into account,” said board member Anja Piel of the German Press Agency. Quality care for patients will only be possible if we succeed in persuading more specialists to stay.
Source: Stern
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