Medical assistants should take over more home visits

Trained practicals can relieve general practitioners

26/12/2014

In Thuringia, more home visits will be covered by medical assistants from next year. The aim is to relieve the doctors 'practices, said the Thuringian family doctors' association to the news agency „dpa“. With the support of the specially trained practice staff, family doctors could plan more time for the individual patient in the future.

Overload due to increasing proportion of older people
From 2015 on Thuringia medical assistants will take more home visits than before. The practice staff are specially trained for this work and could, among other things, check the blood pressure of patients on the spot, take blood or discuss problems with medication. As the chairman of the Thuringian family doctor association, Ulf Zitterbart, opposite the „dpa“ This could significantly relieve GPs and increase the time they spend on individual patients. Many primary care physicians have been overburdened for years, mainly due to demographic change and the increase in chronic diseases. Especially the increasingly aging population will benefit considerably from the mobility of practical assistance, Ulf Zitterbart continued in a statement by the AOKplus. „Patients who visit a doctor's office thus relieved will feel positively the time gained by their general practitioner on the spot.“

Coffers obliged to pay off in 2015
As the association informs, from 2015 all statutory health insurance companies are obliged to honor home visits by specialized medical assistants. According to the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV), this currently affects around 280 employees in around 1,600 GP surgeries in Thuringia alone. As informed by the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, any major family practice that employs a non-medical practice assistant can therefore be considered, „a subsidy of up to 1,320 euros in the quarter“ receive. In addition, the home visits would be compensated by the specially trained staff. For the billing, however, a license from the respective Kassenärztliche Vereinigung and the additional training of practical assistants is necessary. (No)

Picture: Andrea Damm