Status: 10/15/2022 5:05 p.m
Surgery rooms have to be heated and medical devices have to be powered by electricity – but the costs are rising. Kassenärzte boss Gassen warns that doctors could close their practices. There is criticism from the statutory health insurance companies.
Because of the sharp increase in energy prices, medical care in Germany could deteriorate, warns Andreas Gassen, chairman of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV). Electricity and heating costs also increased for the practice rooms.
“If the heating costs for the practice rooms increase massively, if electricity costs for radiologists, for example, increase fivefold or even tenfold, then the question arises as to whether, for example, MRI examinations can still be carried out economically,” Gassen told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Early retirement for general practitioners
A third of family doctors are over 60 years old. According to Gassen, anyone who is at the end of their career cannot renew their leases earlier than planned and quit.
The crisis-related practice closures could be felt in the next year or the year after. “And that in a situation where we are already unable to fill many practices. The local supply is then even more at risk,” said Gassen.
Criticism from the health insurance companies
The statutory health insurance companies (GKV) criticized Gassen’s statements. The “prophecies of doom” unsettled millions of patients, said Florian Lanz, spokesman for the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, to the AFP news agency.
Practice owners receive an average net income of well over 200,000 euros per year, radiologists even more than 400,000 euros. “It is already clear that the total doctors’ fees will increase by 1.4 billion euros in the coming year,” said Lanz. That is arithmetically 11,000 euros more per doctor.
Doctors should rather “appreciate this increase in fees, which millions of people finance through their health insurance contributions, instead of reflexively calling for even more,” said Lanz.