Federal Health Minister Nina Warken (CDU) has announced comprehensive measures aimed at streamlining administration and reducing bureaucratic hurdles within the healthcare sector. The aim is to enable patients to secure appointments and submit claims more easily, while simultaneously alleviating the extensive documentation and reporting duties of doctor’s offices, hospitals, and other service providers.
Many of these changes are designed to be immediately noticeable to patients. The ministry intends to introduce electronic referral systems and digital appointment management. According to the action catalog, this will help insurees navigate the complex healthcare system more effectively, ensuring that appointments are granted efficiently and according to actual needs. Currently, paper-based referrals and traditional appointment scheduling place a high demand on both patients and private practices. Moving forward, referrals will be transmitted electronically, and available slots will be reported directly from practice management systems to the booking services of statutory health insurance associations.
Significant relief is also planned for dependent individuals and their families. The ministry acknowledges that modern care insurance involves a large number of benefits with varied application procedures. To simplify this process, a digital “Care Cockpit” will be implemented. This platform will allow recipients to view their benefits and billing data, permit relatives to digitally authorize submissions, handle applications and receipts online, and track the processing status at any time, making access to services both efficient and free of excessive bureaucracy.
Chronic patients will also receive support. The ministry points out that current processes, which are often designed around single-instance benefits, create a heavy administrative burden for those with chronic conditions. In the future, health insurance companies will automatically inform patients when they reach their self-payment limits for co-payments. Furthermore, the process for providing yearly proof of chronic status will be simplified.
In other areas, patients will need to fill out fewer forms. The minister confirmed that, moving forward, the income data of voluntary beneficiaries will be automatically exchanged between tax authorities and health insurance funds, eliminating the need for patients to submit complex reports. The ministry also plans to introduce electronic narcotic prescriptions and digitize application and expert assessment procedures within outpatient psychotherapy-a process currently noted as a frequent “additional hurdle” for individuals in psychological crisis.
For medical providers and hospitals, the catalog includes numerous administrative and documentation simplifications. Future communication between health insurance companies, authorities, and providers will occur entirely through secure digital communication channels (KIM and TI-M), thereby avoiding existing “media breaks.” Handwritten signatures on documentation, admissions, or benefit confirmations will be replaced by digital authorizations.
The measures also entail structural changes for hospitals and in billing practices. Hospitals will receive relief regarding facility staffing requirements under current regulations. Moreover, there is a plan to set a threshold of 300 euros for efficiency reviews, reduce invoice reductions resulting from mere formal errors, and establish nationwide standardized approval limits for low-cost assistive devices.
Some suggestions will be implemented in the short term. According to the ministry, these measures are incorporated into various legislative frameworks, including the Law for Data and Digital Innovations in Healthcare (GeDIG), the planned Primary Care Act, the Health Insurance Contribution Rate Stabilization Act, the Care Law (PNOG), and the forthcoming Act on Modernizing Aids and Reducing Bureaucracy.
Warken stated to newspapers that while the possibility of creating more freedom through the reduction of unnecessary bureaucracy has been suggested for years, the government will not stop at mere declarations. The federal government will “consistently pursue” this path, specifically addressing the concrete suggestions provided by those who face overwhelming documentation requirements every day. The ministry explained that this action catalog is the result of months of specialized discussions with healthcare representatives and is not considered a final document, emphasizing the need for continuous bureaucracy reduction in the healthcare sector.
