AOK Established doctors work too little

AOK: Established doctors work too little

03/09/2011

The Federal Association of the general local health insurance AOK criticized on Friday the practicing doctors in Germany. Those insured by the law receive too little health care for what pay monthly contributions to the health insurance. For this, they sometimes have to wait weeks or months for a specialist appointment, even if they are very ill. The designated AOK Federal Board Jürgen Graalmann accuses the doctors to spend too few hours for patients and yet to collect the full fee.

Doctors spend too little time on cash-desk patients
The future AOK national chairman Jürgen Graalmann has sparked a new debate about care gaps in the outpatient health care system. In the opinion of the board, waiting times for appointments with medical specialists would be mainly due to the low statutory health service hours. This is the result of a representative survey commissioned by the AOK Federal Association of GPs and Specialists. According to this, cash patients are treated 39 hours a week with German medical specialists and 47 hours a week with general practitioners. Calculated but are according to compensation agreements between the Kassenärztlichen associations and the health insurance 51 hours per week, which are also paid by the health insurance. Thus, amount „The shortfall of many specialists to 23 percent, "as Graalmann criticized on the sidelines of a cash-desk seminar in Joachimsthal near Berlin.

The AOK Bundeschef called on the Kassenärztliche associations to ensure that the doctors no longer deny the cash patients the agreed work. Finally, the study results show that while physicians receive ever higher pay, but at the same time shorten more and more office hours for patients. If contract doctors were to make full use of the agreed working hours, the care of patients could be improved without additional policy measures and without further cost increases. In addition, patients would not have to wait weeks for an appointment with a specialist.

According to the survey results of the institute „psychonomics“ Most primary care physicians work about 60 and the specialists 50 hours a week. The general practitioners account for 47 hours of practice for the care of legally insured persons (including administrative work and billing). Specialists such as cardiologists and urologists, however, only work 39 hours per day for cash patients. The main criticism is attributable to the specialists, because the general practitioner with an average of eight percent minus still „to move in the tolerance range“. At 23 percent, there is already a massive mismatch between paid treatment time and paid dignitaries. Graalmann estimates that the unpaid working hours cause losses of around four billion euros per year. The AOK does not want to demand the money back or to stir up a new discussion about doctors' fees. It's about waiting for doctor's appointments „to shorten at least a week“. Such an appeal „Doctors should not shut up“, warned Graalmann.

Medical Association rejects criticism
The Kassenärztliche Federal Association (KBV) can not understand the criticism. Rather, it is the case that the doctors, despite underpayment for their patients at any time and in an emergency on the weekend. After all, patients would only have to wait in Germany, „However, the KBV boss Dr. Andreas Köhler said Köhler expects completely different than the AOK.Also between the medical associations and health insurance 20 consultations per week are agreed.The Federal Association of statutory health insurance but have only In April of this year, for his part, it was found that GPs spent more than 30 hours on average and specialists had more than 26 consultations, while the remaining hours were used for medical reports and diagnostics, as well as for administrative activities.

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Gerd Altmann