With homeopathy on insured catch?

28/02/2013

Since this year, the AOK Bremen / Bremerhaven and the AOK Niedersachsen offer their insured homeopathy as a statutory benefit. Be reimbursed „the homeopathic first history and the homeopathic follow-up treatment, provided that they are provided by contract physicians with the additional qualification of homeopathy“, it says on the AOK websites. In addition, the costs of homeopathic medicines are reimbursed if they have been prescribed by a contract doctor with the additional qualification of homeopathy on a private prescription.

However, these services are capped. Insured persons will be reimbursed for the actual costs of 80 percent per invoice, but only up to a maximum of 250 euros per calendar year. Look closely at the insured of the AOK Lower Saxony, because there it says in the statute - and only there - that this service ends on 31 December 2013. Upon request, the DZVhÄ learned that this achievement would continue to be reimbursed in 2014 if the financial position remained good. Unlike the AOK Bremen / Bremerhaven, there is the performance beyond the year 2013 addition.

Although the German Central Association of Homeopathic Doctors (DZVhÄ) welcomes the openness of the AOKs to homeopathy, DZVhÄ chairman Cornelia Bajic criticizes: „The limitation to the first and following anamnesis and the reimbursement of 250 euros a year is half-hearted, because pay the insured on it.“ In the selective contracts of the DZVhÄ- management company - currently with about 90 statutory health insurance companies - the therapeutic spectrum of homeopathic treatment is realistically depicted. These benefits are also free for the insured.

Since patients are often complex chronically ill people, the DZVhÄ had stimulated, only doctors with the Homeopathy Diploma of the DZVhÄ or a comparable qualification. The diploma includes a much more intensive education than the additional qualification and obliges the owners to a continuous further education. Also, the DZVhÄ had recommended that the reimbursement of the benefit not be attached to the approval status of the doctor, but only to his education. Paragraph 11 (6) of the GKV Versorgungsstrukturgesetz explicitly permits the reimbursement of quality-assured services by non-licensed service providers - ie private doctors. (Pm)

Picture: Jörg Sabel