Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach wants to continue to involve the panel doctors in the bureaucratic handling of corona citizen tests. The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians is not at all enthusiastic about this, and its president vehemently scolds the tests themselves. Now they agree on a procedure.
In the dispute over the billing of the Corona citizen tests, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) has reached an agreement with the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV). As the Ministry of Health and the KBV announced on Monday evening, the Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians will continue to receive the accounts from the test centers and make payments. The data is then passed on to the federal government, which checks the plausibility of the tests and results and reports any anomalies to the municipal regulatory authorities.
Both sides emphasized that nothing will change in the new rules for citizen tests. Since Thursday, the citizen tests, which were previously free of charge for everyone, have only been available for certain groups such as children up to five years of age, pregnant women or visitors to hospitals and nursing homes without additional payment. Normally, a deductible of three euros has to be paid for a quick test.
The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians had criticized the new rules as too bureaucratic and announced that it would no longer bill and pay out citizen tests. The Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians "could not be responsible for making clear payments on bills whose correctness they cannot begin to verify," it said in a letter to Lauterbach.
KBV boss Andreas Gassen had even called for a complete cessation of the Corona citizen tests. "These nonsensical tests must be abolished," he told the "Bild" newspaper. "They are far too expensive, the bureaucratic effort is huge and the epidemiological significance is zero."
On Monday, the KBV said that after the agreement with Lauterbach it was now "clarified" that the associations of statutory health insurance physicians did not have to check the new eligibility requirements and could not be held responsible for cases of fraud.
