One month after the hospital reform came into effect, the Federal Ministry of Health has provided more clarity on how the clinic structure in Germany will change as a result of the reform. “With the Leistungsgruppen-Grouper, we are making the hospital reform more precise” said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) on Tuesday. “This will make it clear which clinic can offer and bill for which services in the future.”
Only hospitals that meet the predefined quality criteria will be paid for the respective service in the future. “The Grouper will enforce the urgently needed specialization of our stationary care” Lauterbach said.
The Institute for the Remuneration System in Hospitals (InEK) developed a key (Grouper) for the implementation of the reform, which assigns the inpatient cases of hospitals to the defined service groups in the hospital reform (KHVVG). The Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) also developed a draft of a regulation to shape the Transformation Fund, which will support the restructuring of the clinic structures. Furthermore, the Leistungsgruppen Committee with an office at the Joint Federal Committee (G-BA) was established, which will further develop the legally defined service groups and quality criteria.
Heyo Kroemer, Chairman of the Board of the Charité in Berlin, sees the reform as an opportunity to maintain the treatment quality in times of a shortage of skilled workers. “The hospital reform offers the necessary basis to adapt the hospital structure to these challenges and to rebase the financing” he said. “In this way, university medicine will receive a coordinating function.”
The Medical Director of the German Heart Center of the Charité, Volkmar Falk, sees an improvement in quality if teams perform certain procedures frequently. “Modern heart and circulation medicine requires subspecialization, which can only be realized in centers with a high volume of cases” he said. “The more procedures a team performs, the better it will be – and the more targeted special expert teams can be formed for specific diseases.” The planned concentration on specialized centers through the allocation of service groups is held by him to be correct. This concentration “improves the quality of care and saves lives” Falk said.