German Health Cost System Revamp

The system by which Germany's 110,000 panel doctors operating within the public-sector health fund framework run their practice budgets is to be revamped. Their federation, the KBV, says the new system will avoid a further "drastic" rise in the volume of treatments booked for fund reimbursement.

The date for the reform is not yet clear, with the KBV board favoring January 1997 and the doctors' representatives preferring July 1997. The final decision will be made by a committee of panel doctors and health funds.

The new system will extend the controversial unified system of treatment and cost evaluation which the KBV launched in January, and is a departure from the KBV's existing fees policy. The practice budgets will provide each doctor, independent of speciality or patient numbers, with an upper limit on the treatments and services to be provided with reimbursement. Any extra services will not be funded. In first-quarter 1996, the panel doctors undertook 30%-40% more treatments and services than in first-half 1995.