Kassenärzte boss Andreas Gassen publicly takes a sharp stance on Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach. He should finally keep his promises.
Berlin – For many patients, the already time-consuming search for the right doctor, including a timely appointment, is likely to become even more difficult. In the next two to three years, around ten percent of medical practices in Germany will close due to age if no successor plan can be found. The chairman of the board of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Andreas Gassen, warns of this in the Picture.
Means: “Waiting times of several months and many kilometers to get to the doctor’s appointment,” says Gassen to the newspaper. In the direction of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, he warned against underfunded medical practices, because, according to Gassen, the increased bureaucracy in particular is affecting the doctors.
Practices in Germany before collapse? Gassen warns Health Minister Lauterbach of fatal consequences
One of the consequences: Establishing a new practice is becoming less and less attractive, while at the same time existing practices are increasingly closing. Not only rural areas are affected by this, Gassen continued. “Even in large cities, numerous practice closures are to be feared, which will significantly restrict the supply close to home.” He warns: “The nationwide supply is therefore specifically at stake.”
On Friday (August 18th) there will therefore be a crisis meeting of the panel doctors. Around 800 doctors and psychotherapists are to draw up a list of requirements that are to be handed over to Health Minister Lauterbach. If he does not rethink, there is a risk of “practice collapse”.
Gassens demands from Lauterbach: the Ministry of Health should fulfill promises made in the coalition agreement
Gassen specifically demands that Lauterbach, among other things, “make establishing a practice attractive again with sufficient funding”. So far, the Minister of Health has not done justice to this. There is “no compensation for inflation”, the medical profession is “tamed with bureaucracy and immature digital applications such as e-prescriptions”, Gassen continued to complain.
Lauterbach had already “made many promises”, but in “general practitioners and specialist practices and psychotherapists’ practices, one is still waiting for important reform steps”. If the Ministry of Health continues to fail to implement the goals agreed in the coalition agreement, Lauterbach will remain the “minister of announcement” for the doctors, Gassen said in an interview with the Picture.
Video: E-Prescription: Lauterbach gets down to business
The Federal Ministry of Health rejects the allegations that they are “incomprehensible”. Expenditure by statutory health insurance for medical care in practices has increased by 44 percent to 46.1 billion euros over the past ten years. And the e-prescription criticized by Gassen also works well in practice. (fmu)
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