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Berlin – During the parliamentary summer recess, the three government factions of the SPD, the Greens and the 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: A hearing for the law in the Health Committee is to take place at the end of September. During the summer break, the federal states want to contact the members of the Bundestag “through all channels” in order to be able to introduce changes to the law in accordance with their ideas.
However, the three MPs who are largely responsible for the law in their parliamentary groups do not want to make any compromises in terms of quality in the reform.
“Under no circumstances should there be a weakening of the benefit groups through exceptions and more emphasis must be placed on self-administration in the form of the G-BA when it comes to the issue of benefit groups,” said the health policy spokesman of the FDP parliamentary group, Andrew Ullmann, to the 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.
“The nationwide quality requirements are the core of the reform. In order to maintain performance groups, the corresponding quality criteria must be met – that is, the personnel and material resources of the individual clinics. We cannot make any compromises here,” said Pantazis in response to a request from the German Medical Journal.
For this, “clear requirements” must be formulated, said Pantazis. He also wants to ensure in the negotiations that the financing of hospitals in rural areas is maintained. “It is clear to us that we must focus particularly on ensuring care in rural areas and strengthen the link between outpatient and inpatient health care,” he announced.
For Janosch Dahmen, who is negotiating hospital reform as the Greens’ health policy spokesman, the focus is also on the quality of care and the financing of rural clinics. “In the parliamentary discussions, we will work to ensure that the quality of care provided by clinics for patients is even more reliable and that the profitability of small clinics in rural areas in particular is better secured,” Dahmen told the German Medical Journal.
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All three health politicians, who each worked as doctors in hospitals before entering politics, also consider the working conditions of the hospital staff to be important. They are committed to ensuring that the changes in the parliamentary process also “significantly improve the working conditions for hospital staff,” said Dahmen.
Pantazis also wants to take a look at further training: “We must also prioritise the further training of doctors and the working conditions for all employees. We will achieve this by introducing flat-rate provision fees – and thus decommercialising the system,” he said.
There will still be discussions in the traffic light coalition regarding the system of flat-rate reserves, as FDP politician Ullmann makes clear: “The revenue system will include flat-rate reserves, but we need to define these more precisely, because existing perverse incentives must be prevented.”
Ullmann also wants to bring about changes to the Transformation Fund, which is intended to finance the restructuring of the hospital landscape over the next ten years and is to be financed half by the federal states and half by contributions from statutory health insurance.
German Medical Journal print
“The transformation fund must be better defined. The distribution must under no circumstances place an additional burden on taxpayers and those with health insurance,” said Ullmann. And: “The states must not burden the federal government with the financial burden.”
The members of the Bundestag are also open to dialogue with the states in this phase of legislation, which this year’s chairwoman of the Conference of Health Ministers (GMK), Kerstin von der Decken (CDU), has also called for.
“For me there is no doubt that we as federal politicians must continue to talk to the states, because only together will the reform succeed,” explained Ullmann. He demands that the states publish their “current hospital plans.”
Dahmen also calls for dialogue. “All those in government positions at federal and state level must now have a shared interest in ensuring that we secure the future of our hospitals with this important reform, so that citizens can find the right hospital at the right time and in the right place.” © bee/cmk/aerzteblatt.de
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