Every fourth doctor's office will close by 2020

A quarter of doctors' surgeries will be abandoned within the next five years

07/04/2014

A quarter of specialists and GPs will give up their practice in the next five years, according to the alarming results of a representative survey of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) and the NAV-Virchow-Bund. Many find no successors, so that the number of practices will decrease significantly overall. This could drastically increase the threat of supply shortages, especially in rural areas, by 2020.

On behalf of the KBV and the NAV Virchow Federation, the opinion research institute infas for the „ Medical Monitor 2014“More than 10,000 physicians and psychotherapists were interviewed by telephone. While giving „93 percent of general practitioners, 95 percent of specialists and 99 percent of psychotherapists“ The fact that they enjoy their work, but the difficult conditions cause them increasingly problems, reports the KBV. „39 percent of GPs are dissatisfied with their economic situation, 46 percent complain about a lack of financial planning security“, explained the Federal Chairman of the NAV-Virchow-Bund, Dirk Heinrich.

There is no time for the patients
According to the results of the current survey, many physicians feel increasingly abandoned in overcoming their ambulatory care task. So missing „With a personal workload of 54 working hours on average with 45 patients treated daily, 66 percent of the respondents had sufficient time for the patient“, stressed Heinrich. In addition, the ever increasing bureaucracy and economic pressure worsen the mood. Therefore, 67 percent of GPs would like to reduce their working hours, KBV reports. „On the one hand, this corresponds to social tendencies, but on the other hand, it is also the result of the political framework conditions for the settled“, explained Dr. Heinrich.

Old age insurance of doctors endangered?
The representative survey also showed that many doctors are retiring in the next five years. „One in four GPs plans to give up their practice over the next five years“, so the message of the Kassenärztliche Federal Association. But many do not find a successor. According to the KBV, this also has consequences for the pensions of physicians in private practice, as the sale of a successor to a successor has hitherto been an essential part of financial security in old age. In the survey, about 75 percent of physicians in private practice said, „that the practice has lost its pension function.“ The Chairman of the KBV, Dr. Ing. Andreas Gassen, said this was „a scandal“, because it is allowed „It can not be that a free professional group, investing only in a very long training, then in building and maintaining a practice that secures jobs and plays an extremely important role in society, is not secured at the end of their working lives.“

Threatening supply gaps
However, the closure of doctors' practices and the lack of interested successors not only has consequences for the old-age insurance of physicians in private practice, but could also lead to a massive intensification of the already planned outpatient care gaps. With an average age of physicians of nearly 55 years, a veritable wave of retirement is expected in the next ten years. Due to the financial risk and often unattractive working conditions - especially in rural areas - the search for suitable successors is becoming increasingly difficult. Here, the medical associations have long been calling for policy countermeasures aimed at setting targeted incentives to take over the practice in rural areas. (Fp)