Survey on telematics infrastructure: Wave of lawsuits from doctors' practices?
26.06.2019 12:19
So far, they have only had to exchange their health insurance card once - otherwise patients have not noticed much about the introduction of the telematics infrastructure. This is one of the largest and most demanding IT projects in the world: all those involved in the healthcare system, such as doctors, psychotherapists, hospitals, pharmacies and health insurance companies, will soon be able to network with each other via the healthcare information highway. But many medical practices are resisting the connection: They consider the system to be too insecure or unnecessary, according to a current survey by the Medical News Service (änd) in Hamburg.
The new system is intended to enable rapid online communication between those involved in the healthcare system - for example using electronic doctor's letters or an electronic patient file. But this is still a thing of the future: the first step is to connect the doctor's practices to the system using a connector box. But that alone seems to be a big hurdle: Contrary to what reports of success from politics and industry suggest, only around half of the practices are apparently connected to the system: 48 percent of around 2,400 doctors surveyed stated in the änd survey that they were TI connection already behind them.
The fact that 52 percent of doctors are not connected is apparently not primarily due to delivery difficulties or technical problems: only ten percent of the practices in question emphasized that they were not yet connected because technical components were missing or service providers were not available. A whopping 76 percent, however, said that they completely reject the telematics infrastructure because the system is simply unnecessary or they fear for the security of their patient data with this form of networking.
A circumstance that is likely to cause some bad blood: The law provides for fee reductions for practices that do not want to network. 19 percent of doctors who refuse TI simply want to accept this loss. However, 70 percent want to defend themselves against the deductions - if necessary with legal action. There are already options in this direction: the medical association MEDI from Baden-Württemberg is currently preparing a model lawsuit in the matter. This is likely to initially affect the statutory health insurance associations, which have to deduct fees.
A total of 2,410 änd members took part in the online survey from June 18th to 24th - verified general practitioners and specialists from across Germany.