German politician Janosch Dahmen, the health policy spokesperson for the Greens, has criticized the primary care plans proposed by German Health Minister Nina Warken of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). According to Dahmen, the federal government’s plans remain vague, as he told the Spiegel in an interview.
Dahmen expressed concerns over the potential introduction of a mandatory system that would force patients to visit their primary care physicians first, without providing any guarantees for strengthening the primary care sector. “Who introduces obligations without relieving practices risks overloading and under-serving” he said.
The CDU and Social Democratic Party (SPD) have agreed on a binding primary care system in their coalition agreement, which would require patients to consult their primary care physicians or pediatricians before seeing a specialist.
Dahmen warned that a primary care system should not become a “politically convenient slogan.” Instead, it must be designed in a way that improves patient care and does not ultimately worsen it.