KKH Allianz urged severely ill people to give notice

The statutory health insurance KKH alliance urgently forced seriously ill on the phone to the termination, because they cause too high health costs. The fund announced now an internal review of events, but contradicted the presentation systematically want to push out chronically ill.

10/30/2012

Basically, statutory health insurance companies are required to include each compulsorily insured, regardless of whether they are old or chronically ill. The ZDF magazine „Frontal 21st“ raises serious allegations against the KKH alliance. These insured, because they are seriously ill and therefore expensive, urged to cancel on the phone. The magazine refers to this claim to existing internal telephone protocols. In response to the allegation, KKH Allianz now wants to conduct an internal audit.

„The customer is blind, a cash change shown as a possibility“. For example, a memo was in a telephone log of KKH Allianz. In another case, the ZDF journalists describe how a seriously ill insured, suffering from diabetes, was also persuaded to call on the phone. Thus, the employee of the cashier asked her to cancel the health insurance. In a note, the employee then wrote in a rather cynical way: "Cried on the phone, notice is given." In another case, a man infected with the HI virus was forced to switch even with long membership and repeated remarks. So it said in the telephone protocol: „He has always been with KKH and they also pay his HIV therapy; after a long conversation, nevertheless convinced to think about cash change; Termination is present.“

No isolated cases: hundreds asked to cancel
According to the ZDF editors, these should not be isolated cases. So be „For months, sick patients have been contacted by phone“. Hundreds are said to have been asked to change the cash register. In the field of vision of the telephone action were mainly seriously ill, because they seem to cause high health costs. „Allianz's business practice has confirmed both the insured and health insurance employees to the editors“, reports Frontal 21. „It was explicitly the goal to push the insured from the health insurance“. The employees of the health insurance had already confirmed the magazine.

The treasurer, Ingo Kailuweit has initially denied any allegations. Such a procedure of his employees he could „not introduce“. With the calls it went around a regular reminder procedure. On Tuesday, the box office announced in Hanover that the board had initiated an internal audit due to the ZDF research. you „want to pursue the allegations“, as it was called. However, the health insurance company objected to allegations of having explicitly contacted ill people. Rather, the fund had wanted to claim outside contributions from defaulting health insurance. Therefore, the action was true „A spokesman said that this was true for all debtors regardless of age, gender, medical history or any other criteria, and it was not intended to encourage members to leave the KKH alliance, and it would be against the law and health insurances would not be worse financially under the new provisions if many chronic patients were insured in the health insurance fund.

Health economist speaks of a scandal
The KKH Allianz currently has 1.8 million members covered by statutory health insurance. Legislation requires all funds to treat each member equally. Criteria such as age, gender, origin or state of health do not matter. Therefore, the respected health economist and CEO of the Joint Welfare Association Professor Rolf Rosenbrock evaluated the actions of the KKH Allianz as „a scandal“. "This is by no means the job of a statutory health insurance." The clause of the responsible social law regulates it clearly, the legal health insurance is a solidarity community according to the principle: „The healthy support the sick, the boys, the elderly.“

Was also disregarded the privacy?
Sharply also criticized the Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar the actions of the fund. The competition must not lead to exceeding legal limits“. He told the magazine that it could not be that „People from the statutory health insurance would be pushed because they may be too expensive“. In addition, allowed „Health insurance companies only process the data that are expressly in the law“. Performance data and health data should not be merged, said Schaar.

Against this background, the current campaign of the fund against the practice fee is less credible. Thus, the KKH alliance had only announced in October to reimburse the fees, because the „Practice fee sick insured unilaterally charged.“ That was not fair, CEO Ingo Kailuweit had recently stated in a press release. (Sb)