“Canceling the new patient regulation would be anti-social!”
27.09.2022 11:51
The federal government justifies the planned deletion of the TSVG new patient regulation by saying that all actors and service providers must make their contribution. Little discussed so far: the removal of the regulation does not affect all doctors equally, but particularly practices in socially or structurally disadvantaged locations.
The traffic light coalition describes itself in its coalition agreement as an alliance for freedom, justice and sustainability. There has been little evidence of these basic values in the planning of political legislation for health care recently. On the one hand, the contributions for the insured will increase, and on the other hand, the insured are threatened with benefit cuts in the form of less consultation hours, long waiting times for an appointment and more difficulty finding an appointment as a new patient.
Dr. med. Dirk Heinrich, Chairman of the German Association of Specialist Doctors (SpiFa), expects that if the TSVG new patient regulation is deleted, practices in socially disadvantaged areas and precarious districts will be particularly affected. “In these districts there are particularly high rates of people moving away or moving in, and the proportion of new patients there is correspondingly high. The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, for example, can impressively prove this with figures,” says Heinrich. In addition, there are hardly any private patient shares or self-payers in these parts of the city that could be used to make up for shortfalls in the budget. “A deletion of the new patient regulation would therefore affect precisely those doctors who already have less than their colleagues and who are responsible for caring for the poorest of the German population,” Heinrich continued. “This is neither fair nor sustainable and we expect the members of Parliament to send a clear signal and reject the abolition of the new patient regulation in the spirit of social responsibility!”