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Berlin – During the parliamentary summer recess, the three government factions of the SPD, Greens and FDP are negotiating the Hospital Care Improvement Act (KVVG) together with the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) and the federal states.
One thing is certain: there will be a hearing on the law in the Health Committee at the end of September. During the summer break, the federal states want to contact the members of the Bundestag “through all channels” so that they can introduce changes to the law in line with their ideas.
The three MPs who are largely responsible for the law in their parliamentary groups do not want to compromise on the quality of the reform.
“Under no circumstances should there be a dilution of the performance groups through exceptions and when it comes to the issue of performance groups, more emphasis should be placed on self-administration in the form of the G-BA,” said health policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Andrew Ullmann. German medical journal.
For Christos Pantazis, responsible for hospital policy in the SPD parliamentary group, the quality of care is also one of the most important issues of the reform.
“National-level quality requirements are the core content of the reform. In order to maintain service groups, the corresponding quality criteria must be met – that is, the personnel and material equipment of each clinic. We cannot make any concessions here,” Pantazis said when asked German medical journal.
“Clear requirements” must be formulated for this, Pantazis said. During the negotiations, he also wanted to ensure that funding for hospitals in rural areas would be maintained. “It is clear to us that we need to focus particularly on ensuring care in rural areas and strengthening the link between outpatient and inpatient healthcare,” he announced.
For Janosch Dahmen, who is negotiating the hospital reform as the Greens’ health policy spokesman, the quality of care and the financing of rural clinics are also in focus. “In the parliamentary deliberations, we will work to ensure that the quality of patient care in clinics is even more reliable and that the economic viability of small clinics in rural areas in particular is better guaranteed,” said Dahmen. German medical journal.
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The working conditions of hospital staff are also important to the three health politicians, who worked as doctors in hospitals before entering politics. We are committed to ensuring that changes in parliamentary procedure also “significantly improve the working conditions of hospital staff,” said Dahmen.
Pantazis also wants to look at continuing education: “We also need to focus on the continuing education of doctors and the working conditions of all employees. We achieve this by introducing retention rates – and thus decommercializing the system,” he said.
There will still be discussions at the traffic lights about the retention fee system, as FDP politician Ullmann makes clear: “With the revenue system there will be retention fees, but we have to define them even more precisely, because existing false incentives must be avoided.”
Ullmann also wants to make changes to the transformation fund, which is intended to finance the restructuring of the hospital landscape over the next ten years and will be financed half by the federal states and half by contributions from statutory health insurance companies.
German medical journal printout
“The transformation fund needs to be better defined. Under no circumstances should the division impose an additional burden on taxpayers and those with health insurance,” Ullmann said. And: “States should not place the financial burden on the federal government.”
The members of the Bundestag are also open to dialogue with the states at this stage of the legislation, which the chairwoman of this year’s Conference of Health Ministers (GMK), Kerstin von der Decken (CDU), also called for.
“I have no doubt that we federal politicians must continue to talk to the states, because the reform will only be successful together,” Ullmann explained. He demands that countries “publish their current hospital plans.”
Dahmen also calls for dialogue. “All those with government responsibility at the federal and state levels must now have a common interest in ensuring that we secure the future of our clinics with this important reform, so that citizens can find the right hospital, at the right time, in the right place.” © bee/cmk/aerzteblatt.de