SPD calls for restriction of IGeL services

Restrict individual health services?

05/11/2012

The individual health services (IGeL) are highly controversial, since the patients have to pay these out of pocket and repeatedly the charge an enrichment of the doctors. The SPD parliamentary group has therefore submitted an application, according to which the provision of individual health services should be made much more difficult.

Among other things, the SPD calls in its application for an obligation on physicians to inform patients about the reasons why individual health services are not covered by statutory health insurance (SHI). Also, the medical profession should be banned on the same day both individual health services as well as a treatment to be charged to the SHI, in order to avoid an inappropriate linking of various treatments, the position of the SPD.

Aggressive marketing in medical practices?
According to statement in the SPD application will be „Patients in the doctor's offices partly through aggressive marketing“ pushed to individual health services. For the doctors this is a lucrative business, which is confirmed by the billed in 2010 in German medical practices Individual health services worth 1.5 billion euros. For the patients, however, the IGeL are often without concrete benefits and only lead to additional financial burdens, according to the criticism of the Social Democrats. „Often the patients receive neither written treatment contracts nor written invoices“, complain the health experts of the SPD in the current application. In the long term, the doctor-patient relationship is at worst sustainably damaged by the IGeL, which is why the provision of individual health services in the opinion of the SPD should be regulated in the future significantly stricter.

Abuse of the IGeL must be excluded
At yesterday's first reading in the Bundestag, the parties agreed across all factions that an abuse of the IGeL for purely business purposes, must be excluded. How to deal with the application of the SPD in detail is now to be discussed further in the health committee. The SPD has presented eight specific points that should be included in a corresponding bill of the Federal Government, although it is not yet certain whether all positions are shared by the other parties in this form. An essential aspect of the proposed resolutions is the information of the patients. Thus, according to the plans of the SPD, in each practice offering individual health services, an overview drawn up by the Federal Government should be posted, on the basis of which the patients can obtain information about individual health services. It must also be stated why the respective IGeL are not included in the benefits catalog of the statutory health insurance, the SPD demands.

Contract doctors should not provide IGeL but cash benefits
In addition, according to the motion of the SPD, the statutory health insurance funds should inform their insured persons about the individual health benefits. The Social Democrats also demand that a written treatment contract must be concluded with the IGeL, in which the physicians provide comprehensive information to their patients. In addition, there should be a personal conversation to educate patients. For all Individual Health Services, a written invoice must be provided, otherwise the patients are not obliged to pay, the SPD application continues. Only in exceptional cases, it should still be possible in the future to settle on one day both IGeL and normal cash benefits to a patient, the Social Democrats demand. The SPD health politician Mechthild Rawert justified this point with reports of citizens who would only have an appointment with the doctor, if they have previously agreed to an individual health service. „Even requested special services, such. B. travel vaccinations or sports medical examinations“ should continue to be allowed on the same day as cash benefits, according to the SPD application. An essential point of the SPD requirement is beyond that, „that contract doctors“ to be obliged to do so, „the majority of their working time for the treatment of insured persons of the statutory health insurance with cash benefits“ to use.

Average additional income of 11,000 euros by IGeL
The request of the SPD also received support from the left-wing health expert Harald Weinberg, who emphasized how difficult it was for patients to assess individual health care benefits. Also, very few IGeL medically make sense, but often rather useless and sometimes even harmful. According to Weinberg, the IGeL is a worthwhile business model for physicians, which earns 11,000 euros per physician per year on average, but this additional income often comes at the expense of the doctor-patient ratio. In his speech, the health expert of the left also referred to the statement of the chairman of the board of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Andreas Köhler, who had advocated a sensitive approach to individual health care so as not to impair the relationship of trust between doctor and patient.

Patient Rights Act comes at the turn of the year
Even with the CDU found various points of the application quite agree, but here is partly exaggerated and a little creates the impression that all freedom of choice of patients to the idea of ​​the SPD, emphasized the CDU health expert, Erwin Rüddel. Finally, the patients are free to use the IGeL or to renounce this ... Also, with the coming into force of the new patient rights law, the information on costs and benefits of individual health services by the attending physician already regulated. Which points may also be supported by the governing parties, should now be clarified in the further deliberations in the Health Committee. (Fp)

Continue reading:
Which IGeL services really make sense
IGeL services often unnecessary at the doctor
Health insurance companies want to restrict additional benefits
Doctors as sellers of additional services
Doctor appointments: Cash patients are disadvantaged
Barely useful additional services at the doctor

Picture: Andrea Damm