Andreas Gassen, the chairman of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV), is advocating for faster specialist appointments in cases of genuine medical urgency. Gassen told the newspaper “Bild” that a speedy appointment mediation system could be implemented for objectively urgent cases, provided that the involved practices receive appropriate compensation.
Under these specific conditions, Gassen stated that ambulatory physicians could provide a limited number of such short-notice appointments, typically within one week. According to the KBV head, this approach would allow patients in particularly critical situations to receive help sooner. These targeted appointments would primarily cover cases categorized as urgent, such as those flagged by a doctor’s urgent referral or through the 116117 service, since truly urgent cases constitute only a small proportion of overall patient care.
However, Gassen expressed skepticism toward establishing a general mandate for specialist appointments. He argued that a general statutory guarantee for appointments is impractical because there is simply insufficient capacity to support it. Instead, he stressed that medical necessity must be the determining factor. The physician’s assessment of urgency is crucial; only then would there be a justifiable basis for guaranteeing an appointment.
