On January 1st, 2012, with the GKV-VStG, the legislator laid the foundation for the development of a new care structure, the "outpatient specialist medical care" (ASV). With the new version of § 116b SGB V (§ 116b SGB V "new"), since the beginning of 2012, not only hospitals but also contract doctors have been included in the regulations. The ASV essentially pursues two goals: Firstly, it is intended to contribute to overcoming the sectoral boundaries in the German health care system and, secondly, to achieve improved interdisciplinary coordination of diagnostics and therapy among the service providers. For the first time in the German healthcare system, the ASV is intended to open up the possibility for registered panel doctors and hospitals to work and work together across sectors under the same conditions (cf. e.g. G-BA 2015a; Klakow-Franck 2014b: 154 and 2015: 6). The introduction of the ASV was not least in the interest of panel doctors (cf. e.g. Klakow-Franck 2014b: 153), because under the existing regulations (§116b SGB V "old") they had to fear that the comparatively financially strong hospitals there is increasing competition with a correspondingly tougher competitive situation in the healthcare market. Contract doctors had also repeatedly filed lawsuits against hospital approvals under Section 116b SGB V "old" (cf. SVR 2012: 259).

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