Lauterbach announces law: Investors should not be allowed to buy medical practices

Large medical centers with various specialist practices are often backed by financial investors who expect substantial profits from them.

Lauterbach announces law: Investors should not be allowed to buy medical practices

Large medical centers with various specialist practices are often backed by financial investors who expect substantial profits from them. Health Minister Lauterbach wants to ban this in the future. The fact that the SPD politician speaks of "locusts" does not go down well everywhere.

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wants to ban financial investors from taking over medical practices. "I put a stop to investors buying up medical practices with absolute greed for profit," announced Lauterbach in the "Bild am Sonntag". There is "the fatal trend that investors are buying up medical care centers with different specialist practices in order to then operate them with maximum profit," Lauterbach criticized. Lauterbach said he would therefore present a draft law in the first quarter of 2023. This should prevent "the entry of these locusts into doctor's offices".

The minister also announced the fight for large practice chains: "The practices must belong to those who actually work there," said Lauterbach. "Then there will be an end to a celebrity doctor lending his name to dozens of practices in which young doctors practice hamster wheel medicine with useless, poor-quality treatments in order to achieve absurd profit goals." In general, he considers returns in the double-digit percentage range "not justifiable" in the healthcare sector. Getting a return of ten percent or more is "hardly possible with reputable medicine". The minister demanded that the "absurd profit concept" in the healthcare system should be fundamentally changed.

The SPD politician demanded that clinics should not charge at a standard price. Otherwise the hospital would make a lot of profit with the bad, cheap surgery, while the university clinic would make a loss with the high-tech surgery. "The discounter profits should be abolished," he said. "But a clinic should make a profit with top quality."

The Central Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (gkv) and the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) reacted positively to the initiative. However, the gkv-Spitzenverband pointed out that the sale of medical practices is less about the premises and the equipment, "but above all about the approval, i.e. the right to be able to bill a statutory health insurance company". This system, with the high costs of buying a health insurance license, would deter young doctors from taking over a practice and attract large investors, criticized association spokesman Florian Lanz. "It would be right to grant such approvals specifically and free of charge to young doctors where they are needed for the care of people, instead of doctors selling them to the highest bidder," Lanz continued.

"Only when people and not profits are the focus of the healthcare system is good medical care possible for everyone," explained DGB board member Anja Piel. Lauterbach is therefore "on the right track if he wants to put a stop to the unrestrained profit, which unfortunately also exists in the field of resident doctors in addition to the responsible offers," added the trade unionist. Instead, Piel called for "effective concepts to ensure high-quality outpatient and inpatient healthcare in town and country".

Sharp criticism of Lauterbach's initiative, on the other hand, came from the Federal Association of Operators of Medical Care Centers (BBMV). Investors that the minister denigrated as "locusts" would "provide urgently needed money to modernize outpatient care," said BBMV chairwoman Sibylle Stauch-Eckmann. She accused Lauterbach of "pure populism".