bEven pain on Friday lunchtime is an organizational challenge. You could try your family doctor or an emergency practice, call the resident doctors' telephone service or alert the emergency services on 112. For many it seems the easiest thing to do: go to the emergency room. Even if you have to wait there for hours. “Today, the emergency centers of the clinics are often overcrowded, even with patients who do not need to be cared for in hospital,” says Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. That should change with the “emergency reform”. On January 16th, the key points that will apply from 2025 were presented.
Years ago, politicians wanted to do something about the overcrowded emergency rooms. Since 2016, the Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians have been offering appointment service points on 116 117, which arrange timely appointments with specialists. However, around 16.6 million cases were treated in emergency rooms in 2021 – more than half of them on an outpatient basis. Experts believe that around one in four patients in the emergency room could have been cared for in a practice. There has also been an increase in the number of people seeking help in the emergency room without first consulting a doctor. In many emergency departments, these “self-presenters” make up almost half of the patients. They worry doctors: some have serious problems that go unnoticed.
#Emergency #reform #changing #patients