Because they see outpatient care at risk, many doctors in Bavaria opened their practices later on Monday in protest. “The demands of the health insurance companies for zero rounds in fees ensure that practices can hardly be operated economically anymore with galloping inflation,” said the board of directors of the Bavarian Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KVB) in Munich. There was also criticism of the plans of Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) to remove the new patient regulation from the law.
“Under these conditions, young doctors can no longer be encouraged to work in their own practice,” it said. “For the patients, the current course of the federal government means that they have to be prepared for longer waiting times for doctor’s appointments and that their usual comprehensive outpatient care is in danger.” Support came from Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU).
KVB members as well as medical and psychotherapeutic professional associations and paediatricians took part in the campaign. The background is, among other things, the plans of the Federal Ministry of Health to delete the so-called new patient regulation. Since 2019, it has been offering doctors special financial incentives so that they can take on new patients in their practice and offer additional appointments at short notice. A deletion of the regulation would mean financial losses for the medical practices.
At the end of June, Lauterbach presented the cornerstones for a law to stabilize health insurance finances – the reduction in extra payments for new patients is part of it. The chairwoman of the central association of statutory health insurance companies, Doris Pfeiffer, had the picture-Zeitung said that the additional remuneration for doctors “had not led to any noticeable improvement in care. It would therefore be right to delete these surcharges now”.
Bavaria’s Health Minister Holetschek also expects that the care of the population will deteriorate if the new patient regulation is abolished. “In addition, the waiting times in the doctor’s offices are likely to increase. That’s why I asked Lauterbach to make corrections to these plans.”