Doctors evaluate health insurance companies

Online portal offers doctors the opportunity to evaluate health insurance

28/09/2012

After several health insurance companies have already introduced portals for the evaluation of doctors, the doctors now turn the tables. With the health insurance navigator on Friday the "first Internet portal for the evaluation of legal health insurance by physicians and psychotherapists went online", so the announcement of the Kassenärztliche federation (KBV).

"The health insurance navigator offers all residents the opportunity to evaluate the behavior of the health insurances in the daily practice routine", explained Dr. med. Andreas Köhler, CEO of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) on the occasion of today's activation of the online portal. The health insurance navigator offers the resident physicians and psychotherapists exclusive the opportunity to assess the statutory health insurance (SHI) on the basis of practical experience from areas such as bureaucracy, recourse or freedom from therapy. In the end, a ranking should be created that also serves as a guide for the patient.

Behavior of health insurance funds should be transparent
On the health insurance navigator only contract doctors and psychotherapists can describe their personal experiences with the health insurance companies and rate them based on school grades. Assessments of the doctors on the five categories of freedom of therapy, regression, bureaucracy, selective contracts as well as service and information are in demand. The health insurance navigator also offers the possibility to write comments in free text fields. In addition, current surveys on the behavior of health insurance funds are provided, reports the Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung. With the help of the distributed school grades, a ranking of the health insurances should emerge over time. The reviews, comments and the ranking are visible to everyone and also give patients an insight into the behavior of their health insurance. However, the health insurance companies are only listed in the ranking when they have been rated by at least ten doctors or psychotherapists, which is currently not the case for most.

Discover weaknesses in the support of doctors by the health insurance
For physicians, the health insurance navigator is a way to strengthen their position against the health insurance companies. "With this instrument, we finally have the opportunity, even the behavior of the health insurance to make transparent," said KBV CEO Köhler. According to the Chairman of the Board of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, the portal is also expressly aimed at the insured of the health insurance companies. "Because if the insured assess doctors - which is perfectly fine, as long as certain criteria are met -, then they should also see whether and how their health insurance fund actually contributes to support a good supply - or not," said Köhler , Thus, the pressure on the health insurance companies to cooperative behavior could certainly rise. For the time being, potential weaknesses in dealing with the health insurance with the medical doctors remained largely in the dark. For the first time, the medical profession has the opportunity to publicize inadequate support from individual health insurances and bureaucratic obstacles in a simple way.

Health insurance navigator to ensure fair reviews
The "Krankenkassen-Navigator" fulfills all quality standards that the Medical Center for Quality in Medicine has defined for assessment portals and which can be transferred to health insurances ", according to the announcement of the Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung. Anonymous reviews are not possible. Doctors must register with their full name, lifelong physician number, and e-mail address before submitting a review. Multiple assessments by the same doctor to a health insurance are excluded, however, the doctors can update their rating in retrospect, reports the KBV. All comments written in the free text fields would be reviewed before publication to avoid defamatory content. Through the guidelines, the initiators want to exclude manipulation and ensure a fair assessment of health insurance. In the end, a ranking will emerge that makes the best of the approximately 140 currently existing statutory health insurance companies recognizable. In addition, the health insurance navigator also offers physicians the opportunity to make their position clear in disputes - such as the current fee dispute with the health insurance fund. While the benefits for the insured have yet to prove themselves, the portal for the medical profession seems therefore already to be a real gain. (Fp)

The addresses of the doctors review portals:
"White List "of the Bertelsmann Foundation: www.weisse-liste.de/arzt
Barmer GEK medical navigator: arztnavi-barmer-gek.de
Medical Leader of Techniker Krankenkasse: www.tk.de/aerztefuehrer
AOK doctor navigator: www.aok-arztnavi.de

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