On 11-23-2023 the German Federal Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach met with the press to present the status of the highly anticipated reform of the German hospital system. Bottom line: we are working on it. 2023 will see no legislative procedure, however. The implementation of the bill in 2025 is not in danger, “we are still on track” assures Lauterbach.
Stakeholders and experts across all sectors universally acknowledge the imperative for this reform, and what it should entail. However, the somewhat uncommon unanimity ends, when it comes to the methods applied to achieve these goals and those divergent viewpoints remain hotly debated.
Said methods are to be defined in the main bill (KVVG). In preparation of this the hospital transparency bill was crafted. However, said bill was rejected by the German Federal Council and sent to the conciliatory committee. Given the complex nature and the multiple open issues, it remains to be seen if the Federal Health Ministry and the federal states will be able, to stick to their timeline. Instead, there is mounting concern that this reform will miss the much-needed structural overhaul of the hospital system and actually increase costs in the long run, and thus have a detrimental effect on the German health care system rather than revolutionizing it.
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