Financial investors should no longer be able to take over medical practices, Health Minister Lauterbach is planning a corresponding law. The medical association fears that the baby will be thrown out with the bathwater. The entry of investors can also make sense in some cases.
After the push from the Ministry of Health against the purchase of medical practices by investors, the German Medical Association warned against hasty action. “We have to look at it differently,” said Chamber President Klaus Reinhardt to the editorial network Germany.
On the one hand, there are doctors who prefer to work in a salaried position. Investments in the healthcare system should not be viewed negatively in principle either, because in some specialist areas the technology can hardly be financed by individual doctors. “It becomes critical, however, when the doctors employed there are under high pressure to make profits or there is monopolization by large MVZ structures or chains,” said Reinhardt.
At the beginning of the week, Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach announced that he wanted to prevent financial investors from buying medical practices in the future. The SPD politician justified this in the “Bild am Sonntag” with the “fatal trend that investors are buying up medical care centers with different specialist practices in order to then operate them with maximum profit”. A corresponding draft law should be available in the first quarter of 2023. Health experts have been complaining for a long time that medical practices are increasingly being taken over by profit-oriented companies and that more and more doctors’ offices are being pooled in medical care centers (MVZ).
The German Medical Association also sees problems with investors: In some regions of Germany, patients already have little alternative to large MVZs or chains, said Reinhardt. “This uncontrolled growth causes us great concern. Countermeasures must be taken here.” Specifically, Reinhardt suggested that in the future only interdisciplinary care centers should be approved. In addition, the market share of the MVZ operated by financial investors should generally be limited to ten percent. It should also be indicated at all MVZ locations on the practice sign and on the Internet who the carrier is. “Patients have a right to know what ownership actually is.”
