As of today, the vast majority of citizens have to pay for corona tests – the reason is a new regulation. The health insurance physicians are now claiming that they cannot implement them. It is not possible for them to check compliance with the regulations in test centers.
The panel doctors are going on the barricades because of the new regulations for corona citizen tests. In a letter to Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) and the state associations announced that they “will no longer be able to bill and pay out citizen tests in the future”. As of today, free tests are only available for risk groups and other exceptional cases. For tests, for example for family celebrations, concerts or meetings with people over 60, an additional payment of three euros is due. Anyone who wants such a test must sign that it is done for this purpose.
According to the editorial network Germany (RND), the KBV refers to the many small-scale entitlements. The association, which is also responsible for billing the test centers, criticizes the fact that it does not see itself in a position to check whether the test centers have complied with all the regulations. “As a result, the Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians cannot be responsible for making payments on bills with their eyes wide open, the correctness of which they cannot begin to check,” the letter continues, according to RND. And this, in view of the “already existing, blatant fraud problem”, in the wake of which public prosecutors were already investigating against an association of statutory health insurance physicians because of the payment of funds.
The Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians also criticized the fact that they only had 4 hours and 15 minutes to comment on the new regulations before the new test regulation was published. There were no reactions from the ministry.
The Federal Ministry of Health stated that it is assumed that the associations of statutory health insurance physicians, as public bodies, will continue to fulfill their mandate for billing and random testing of the test centers. “In dialogue, we will discuss with the KVs at short notice how the new rules can be implemented unbureaucratically,” said a spokesman.
