Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin on Wednesday to protest planned cuts to the reimbursement rates for psychotherapeutic services. The demonstration took place just one day after the Federal Minister of Health, Nina Warken (CDU), announced plans to enforce further significant cuts across the healthcare system.
The “Health Finance Commission” among other proposals suggested discontinuing the “extra-budgetary reimbursement” for outpatient psychotherapeutic services in an effort to reduce the overall costs of psychotherapy. Earlier still, the Assessment Committee had already decided to lower fees by 4.5 percent, a reduction that has been in effect since April 1st. Activists organizing the protest stated that the uncertainty surrounding future reimbursement adjustments makes long-term planning difficult and endangers both the secure provision and the quality of care.
On Tuesday, Warken outlined the general outline of her statutory health insurance savings package. One part of the plan stipulates that future increases in prices and reimbursements will be linked to the development of revenue streams, while another mandates that expenditures for insured individuals must have a “demonstrable benefit”. Although Warken intends to implement 80 percent of the committee’s proposals presented at the end of March, many details of the plan remain unclear.