Self-employed physiotherapists subject to social insurance

Federal Constitutional Court rejects physiotherapist from Bremen
Karlsruhe (jur). The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe has confirmed the pension insurance obligation of self-employed physiotherapists. The social courts have rightly assigned them to the circle of "nurses in nursing", as the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in a decision of 25 April 2016 published on 16 June 2016 (Ref .: 1 BvR 1147/12).

It rejected a physiotherapist and physiotherapist from Bremen, who has been working freelance in her profession since 1983. In 2005, the German pension insurance federation established its compulsory insurance and demanded contributions. The complaint against this was unsuccessful.

(Image: Sebastian Duda / fotolia.com)

According to the Social Security Code, in addition to employees, several groups are self-employed pensioners. These include "caregivers who work in the health, weekly, infant or child care and regularly employ no insurable employee in connection with their self-employment".

With her constitutional complaint, the physiotherapist argued that pension insurance and courts had wrongly assigned her to the group of "nurses in nursing".

The Federal Constitutional Court did not follow that. The Federal Social Court (BSG) in Kassel had the field of nursing far and included all "auxiliaries in health care" (most recently BSG decision of 12 January 2007, Ref .: B 12 R 14/06 B). The BSG had thus assumed a special protection of the freelancers in the health sector, including the freelance physiotherapist. This interpretation of the law was admissible and not objectionable, were the Karlsruhe judges. two