Central association ZNS on the Statutory Health Insurance Care Strengthening Act
18.12.2014 13:53
The chairman of the central association ZNS (SPiZ), Dr. med. Frank Bergmann: “Patients with psychiatric and neurological illnesses will have to wait even longer for an appointment with a specialist or psychotherapist in the future if the grand coalition implements its plans for the so-called Statutory Health Insurance Care Strengthening Act. “The law will make it even more difficult, if not impossible, to provide patients with timely care.”
The background to this is the obligation in the draft law for statutory health insurance associations to buy up vacant doctor's positions in so-called oversupplied areas and not to fill them again, for example if the practice owner retires. Bergmann emphasizes that even in metropolitan areas there is no oversupply of neurologists, neurologists, psychiatrists and child and adolescent psychiatrists - this is proven by the waiting times for an appointment alone. “The claim that there is an oversupply of specialists is in no way tenable. It is based on a continuation of old statistics and is simply not accurate, especially not for the area of neurological, neurological and psychiatric care,” said the chairman of the SPiZ.
“It is absurd to massively reduce practices but at the same time want to reduce waiting times,” criticizes Bergmann. The appointment service centers provided for in the law could not solve the problem because they did not create any new treatment capacity. Instead, the SpiZ calls for an increase in the number of neurological and psychiatric contract doctors' offices as well as a better networking of offers within the framework of integrated care or structural contracts. The various actors involved in care could form care networks in their region within the framework of contracts for integrated care and thus use human and financial resources particularly effectively for the benefit of patients, says Bergmann. The professional associations have already created the corresponding treatment paths based on guidelines from the relevant scientific societies. “Now we need health insurance companies to work with us to build these supply networks in the regions for the benefit of the patients,” demands Bergmann.
The SPiZ also suggests promoting further specialist training in practices. They could then expand their treatment capacities and thus shorten the waiting times of their patients. Such further training would also reduce the shortage of doctors in the outpatient sector.