German Funds Can Still Hike Patient Charges

A further draft of the second revamp of Germany's health fundsregulations will allow individual funds to raise existing patient charges for drugs and treatment, and permit graduated charges linked to indication categories or groups of active principles. Individual funds will be able to raise patient charges for certain drugs by up to 100%.

The federation of industrial health funds and the research-based drug industry association, the VFA, prefer models in which patients pay charges based on the severity of the illness or the active principles of the prescribed drugs, but the drug industry association and the over-the-counter drugmakers are concerned over what they see as discrimination between certain groups of drugs on the basis of patient charges.

Liberal Party health spokesman Dieter Thomae says the coalition parties have abandoned the plan for different patient charge regimes within individual funds because they oppose positive lists and believe the funds should still reimburse "natural" health cures. The overall effect of the changes is likely to be strong curbs on the funds' room for maneuver for avoiding premium rises through a reshaping of their reimbursement structures. Government involvement in reimbursement decisions is set to grow through partnership agreements between health service providers, settled at federal level.