Status: 04/12/2023 07:20 a.m
Anyone who uses the emergency room without being required to do so should pay a fee. The head of the Kassenärzte Gassen spoke out in favor of this. Patients should have their condition assessed beforehand by calling 112.
The head of the panel doctors, Andreas Gassen, advocates a fee for patients who come to the emergency room in the future without an initial telephone assessment.
“Anyone who continues to go directly to the emergency room without first calling the control center may have to pay an emergency fee, because that costs the solidarity community more money and ties up medical resources unnecessarily,” he told the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND).
Gassen: May endanger other people’s lives
It is always argued that such fees are anti-social. “In my opinion, however, it is antisocial to use the emergency service inappropriately and thus endanger the lives of other people,” he said. “Anyone who can still go to an emergency room themselves is often not a real medical emergency.”
Gassen also welcomed the plans of Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) to virtually connect the rescue service on number 112 and the medical on-call service on number 116 117 in order to make an initial assessment and then guide the caller correctly.