More Saturday office hours of psychotherapists

BSG complains of non-compliance with previous billing rules
Psychotherapy is not always easily compatible with a full job, especially if employers and colleagues are not to hear about the treatment. After a verdict of the Federal Social Court (BSG) in Kassel from February 17, 2016 could soon come to remedy in the form of increased Saturday office hours (Az .: B 6 KA 47/14 R). According to this, the exclusion of the majority of psychotherapists from a Saturday supplement is a violation of equity.
Most psychotherapists have a psychological education, but some also a medical one. According to the previous accounting rules, the "medical psychotherapists" for Saturday consultations can charge a surcharge, the "psychological psychotherapists" but not.

Coming soon psychotherapy also on Saturday. Image: Photographee.eu - fotolia

This is justified by the fact that the medical psychotherapists also offer acute consultation hours. The psychological colleagues on the other hand work in pure order practice.

But in the settlement rate for the Saturday surcharges, this is not reflected, now complained the BSG. Rather, after that, the psychotherapists are entitled to the surcharge for order treatments on Saturdays.

According to the Kassel judgment, the current regulation therefore violates the equality requirement of the Basic Law. The so-called evaluation committee, which determines the billing rules for the statutory health insurance contract doctors, is therefore to rectify this "equal treatment offense".

Thus, the BSG was a psychological psychotherapist from Hesse right. Although he had the Saturday surcharge billed, then because of the previous regulations but not get compensated. The Kassenärztliche Vereinigung Hessen should now wait until the equality violation has been corrected, and then decide on the fee reimbursement.

The complaint had been supported as a model procedure by the German Psychotherapists Association (DPtV). After the success before the BSG the federation demanded now "a fundamental rethinking" in the evaluation committee and the Kassenärztliche associations. "It is unacceptable that the Evaluation Committee continues to discriminate against psychological psychotherapists and child and adolescent psychotherapists," said DPTV Chair Barbara Lubisch in Berlin.
(Mwo / fle)