>> The fact that such an institute is not anchored in the original range of services and tasks of a health insurance company was seen quite differently by Senator Cornelia Prufer-Storcks, the Minister of Health for the State of Hamburg. In her greeting - which introduced the congress - she said, addressing both the TK, the WINEG and the approximately 200 visitors, that “it is certainly part of the job of health insurance companies not only to be interested in the money being collected and... “If possible, it should not be spent too much”, but rather that this should be done sensibly. It is therefore advisable for statutory health insurance companies to carry out healthcare research and to use the wealth of data they have collected for this purpose. Not every health insurance fund can afford to finance such an institute, but she thinks it would be good that at least the larger types of health insurance funds would do this, with which she referred to the much older AOK Institute WiDO.
For Baas, these scientific institutes - primarily WINEG, of course - have an important function that is directed both internally and externally. For the TK, its task would be to question whether “what we are doing really improves care” in order to help answer the question in every decision made by the fund: “Does the insured person really want me to spend their money on this?” ?" Baas: "That is
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