Federal Minister for Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and Kerstin von der Decken (CDU), Minister for Justice and Health in Schleswig-Holstein, will meet again tomorrow for talks on hospital reform. / image alliance, Frank Molter (Von der Decken), Michael Kappeler (Lauterbach)
Berlin – Tomorrow, Wednesday, the federal and state governments want to discuss hospital reform again. The basis of the consultation must be the demands of the countries participating in them eleven points in his late April statement to the federal government.
The Federal Cabinet presented the draft Hospital Care Improvement Act (KHVVG) decided almost two weeks agoalthough the Federal Ministry of Justice has not yet definitively completed its legal review.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) finds some of the states’ proposals attractive and can imagine implementing them, they say in state circles today. Lauterbach sees others as critical of the implementation.
The federal states want to represent their positions again tomorrow and expect changes and improvements to the KHVVG in the next parliamentary procedure. In particular, improvements are needed for regional states, but also for special clinics in metropolitan areas, state sources said.
Among other things, the federal states require an analysis of the impact of the reform on assistance. Additionally, improvements are needed in planned reserve financing, according to the late April statement. The federal states also insisted on new measures to reduce bureaucracy in order to ease the burden on hospitals and doctors.
Bavarian Health Minister Judith Gerlach (CSU) today called on Lauterbach to “give up his rigid stance” and support the states’ proposals in the parliamentary process. Gerlach emphasized that the federal states would exhaust all possibilities within the framework of the next parliamentary procedure to make the necessary corrections.
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For example, more opportunities are needed for hospitals to cooperate with other clinics and combine structures. “So far, the federal government has only provided very limited regulations here. “But it must be possible to maintain locations through meaningful cooperation and thus guarantee the best possible medical care also for people in rural areas,” demanded Gerlach.
The German Hospital Association once again supported the states’ demands (DKG) and appealed to Lauterbach to take them into account. Hospitals fully support hospital planning based on uniform service groups according to the NRW model, which all states would have agreed with the Federal Minister as early as 2023, explained DKG Vice President Henriette Neumeyer.
There is also a need for changes to the planned financial reform. “Lauterbach’s proposal for reserve funding remains inadequate,” Neumeyer said. The minister must abandon his confrontational and blocking attitude and with that National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds and DKG are looking for a conversation. Hospitals need reform as urgently as patients do, Neumeyer said. © cmk/aerzteblatt.de