German Funds' Anger At Drug Budget Chaos

German health funds say they face huge losses because Siemens cannot make new drug-budgeting software available on time.

Siemens AG chairman Heinrich Pierer said that "despite considerable efforts and the use of excellent technical specialists," the company would not be able to deliver the new software on time; delivery was expected fourth-quarter 1996. The immediate consequences of this delay, say the funds, is that Health Minister Horst Seehofer's newly-formulated drugs budget system cannot be controlled properly.

The aim of the system is to monitor overspending on drugs, with doctors penalized for exceeding their budgets. To calculate each doctor's spending, pharmacists must transfer machine-readable prescriptions from the doctor to the funds. Assessing and calculating these prescriptions makes new demands on computer software in south and north German pharmacy calculation centers, which cannot now supply the agreed processed data. The centers process some 60% of fund prescriptions, with a sales volume of about 20 billion Deutschemarks ($13.03 billion) a year. Siemens is responsible for the software.