Better chances for mother-child cures

Mothers and fathers should now apply for a mother-child cure

19/08/2011

The savings will of the health insurance has led in recent years to a massive decline in approved mother-child cures. Meanwhile, however, a party-overlapping coalition has formed in the Bundestag, with the aim of strengthening the rights of mothers and fathers. The Maternal Welfare Organization (MGW) is calling on legally insured mothers and fathers to apply for a cure. Politically, there is currently a tremendous backwind, as the association explained.

The first spa facilities are currently struggling with massive financial slumps, because health insurance companies have approved fewer and fewer spa applications in the past. Especially affected were mother-child cures. According to the MGW, the health insurances have rejected about a third of the cures in the last year. Thus, the rejection rate increased by 3 percent compared to the same period last year. The action of the health insurance funds to increasingly reject mother-child cures is now reaching audible criticism in the German Bundestag across all groups, as the director of the Müttergeneswerk, Anne Schilling, announced today in Berlin. The support of the parties could in future change the approval practice of the health insurance funds, because the policy now looks very closely. For this reason, the association recommends that burned and ill mothers be promptly submitted with a cure application.

A bipartisan motion for a resolution to strengthen the rights of the applicants should, in all probability, be adopted in the Bundestag on the political summer break. The application is primarily about creating new transparency in the approval process. In July of this year, the joint health committee of the Bundestag had expressed its dissatisfaction over the practice of the cash registers. There are signs that it is in the examination of the spa applications „big deficits“ exist, as stated in the application. For this reason, the health insurance funds were requested to make the approval procedures more transparent by the end of the year and to lay down detailed criteria for reasons for refusal. Because, according to many health politicians, disregard the cash in the mother-child spa applications many times the legal entitlement of the parents. There are, for example, reports in which coffers reject applications without justification and therefore arbitrarily.

Cures can demonstrably alleviate emerging diseases and thus save costs in the long-term health care system. During a cure, for example, back pain, depression or acute sleep disorders can be treated. Parent-child cures were still discretionary services until 2007. In a reform, the cures were converted into compulsory benefits. According to the Health Committee, the number of approved cures initially increased significantly in 2007 and 2008. In the following years, the numbers were again noticeably declining. In 2009, the approved spa measures fell by 6.01 percent and in 2010 by 9.22 percent (compared to the previous year). (Sb)

Read about:
Mother-child cures in danger
Health insurance companies grant fewer and fewer cures
Frequent rejection of mother-child cures

Image: Lucie Kärcher