Medical appointments law against too long waiting times

Politics wants to shorten waiting times for a specialist appointment

02/23/2015

Appointments with a specialist are often difficult to obtain for insured persons and are associated with months of waiting. In the worst case, the overly long waiting time can have serious health consequences for those affected, as the example of a patient from the program by Günther Jauch on Sunday evening illustrates. Under the heading "From, the next please! The long wait for the doctor's appointment "Jauch talked with a person affected, various experts and the Federal Minister of Health about the waiting times for doctors, their causes, the consequences and possible solutions.

"While in rural areas patients not only have to wait a long time, but often have to drive a long way, the problem is increasingly shifting to the hospitals in the cities," reports the "ARD". There, patients would rush to the emergency rooms and bring them to the limits of their capacity. When asked for an appointment with the cardiologist, ophthalmologist or dermatologist, the answer is often that the next free appointment is only in four months, says Jauch. This can be fatal for the victims in the worst case. Stefanie H., for example, reports about her symptoms in the program, which should be examined by a neurologist. Despite intensive efforts, she did not receive a timely appointment and would have to wait for up to eight months. In the end, the patient was able to make an appointment by exaggerating the symptoms of a brain tumor, which had to undergo immediate surgery. Until the dates mentioned above, according to the doctors, the woman would not have survived.

Extremely long waiting times for a specialist appointment undisputed
The broadcast also reported other patients who died while waiting for an appointment with the cardiologist for the consequences of their heart condition. But the discussion among the panel guests was without direct involvement of affected patients. Invited were experts such as Stefan Etgeton, health researchers from the Bertelsmann Foundation, Federal Health Minister Hermann Gröhe (CDU), the chairman of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) Andreas Gassen, Susanne Mauersberg from the Federation of Consumer Organizations and Consumer Associations - Consumer Federation (vzbv) and the emergency doctor Paul Brandenburg. Although the experts in many details were extremely different views, ultimately no one denies the sometimes extremely long waiting for a specialist appointment. How to deal with this, however, remains controversial.

Timely medical appointments in rural areas are a significant problem
The health researcher Stefan Etgeton from the Bertelsmann Foundation reports on the results of his research, which shows that doctors in Germany are very unevenly distributed. While in large cities an agglomeration of the medical practices was to be noted, the supply in the bacon belts around the metropolises already clearly worse off. According to the expert, the sparsely populated, rural regions - especially in eastern Germany - have the greatest weaknesses here. While an average of 28 percent of Germans wait longer than four weeks for a specialist appointment, this applies to the sparsely populated East to a whopping 39 percent. The unequal distribution of doctors here leads to an aggravation of the problem. In addition, many doctors are currently around the age of 60 years and therefore an early adoption is pending. The living and working conditions as a country doctor for many potential successors are rather unattractive, which in the future should result in a further decimation of rural medical practices.

Supply strengthening law to shorten waiting times
The Federal Government wants to put an end to the long waiting times for a specialist appointment with the pension strengthening law, explained the Federal Minister of Health Hermann Gröhe at Günther Jauch. No patient should have to wait more than four weeks for an appointment in the future. Corresponding service centers, which must be set up by the panel physicians' associations, are to help in arranging appointments. If the telephone service can not submit an appointment within one week, the patients will be transferred to the hospital and the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians will bear the costs. The basic idea is that medical specialists report free times to the service centers, and the latter then arrange appropriate appointments with patients in need, according to Gröhe. Andreas Gassen sees in the proposal of the Federal Government, however, no solution to the fundamental problems. First, the classification of cases according to urgency. In addition, many patients would prefer their "desired doctor", but the appointment is agreed with any specialist in reasonable range.

Performance claim of patients a problem?
And the basic problem remains unabated high access to all medical specialties, so the Chairman of the KBV on. Patients are also partly victims of the free movement of the system. They are made an unqualified promise of service, which should offer the opportunity to visit at any time at will a (specialist) doctor. However, the doctors would not be able to afford this in the medium term. Consequently, theoretically a restriction of the promise of service would have to be forthcoming. A claim that is likely to be poorly understood by most legally insured patients. Because in the discussion it was not mentioned that the long waiting times are a problem, especially for those insured under the law, while private patients usually wait much shorter for a specialist appointment. Clearly, there seems to be scope for short-term appointments by doctors. If some of the available capacity is now reported to the service points to enable timely scheduling, the Provision Strengthening Act could actually make a significant contribution to shortening waiting times for a specialist appointment. (Fp)