The top association of statutory health insurance funds is calling on the next federal government to prevent the preferential treatment of private patients over those with statutory health insurance when it comes to scheduling appointments.
“Who wants genuine equality should ensure that, when scheduling appointments, it is no longer possible to ask whether someone is statutorily or privately insured” said the deputy association head Stefanie Stoff-Ahnis to the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland”. “If you go to a booking portal and search for a specialist appointment as a statutorily insured patient, you’ll get one in six weeks or later. But if you click ‘private patient’ it works already the next day” she complained.
“We will no longer tolerate the discrimination of statutorily insured patients against private patients when it comes to scheduling appointments” said Stoff-Ahnis. “90 percent of people in Germany are statutorily insured. It’s more than justified that, in the future, it should be 100 percent about the medical necessity when scheduling appointments, and not about whether someone is GKV or PKV-insured” the board member emphasized.
She demanded, independent of a possible ban on discrimination in scheduling, a legal obligation for all doctor’s offices to make free appointments available in real-time on an online portal that the statutory health insurance funds and the Chamber of Physicians can access. “Using this portal, statutory health insurance funds can then mediate appointments for their insured. This way, a discrimination-free access to doctor’s offices can be guaranteed” she explained.