Health Minister Carsten Linnemann of the CDU plans to cut administrative overhead and bureaucratic costs within the healthcare system by 101 million euros per year by 2030. This proposed measure stems from the draft law on modernization and bureaucratic reduction for medical aids (HiB), as reported by the magazine “Politico.”
Following the recent pension care reforms, the HiB is identified as the Minister’s next major legislative push. The law aims to ease the burden on both physicians and psychotherapists by simplifying or eliminating existing regulations. According to the draft, the financial relief provided by the law is projected to increase to approximately 182 million euros annually starting from 2030.
To reduce the administrative load on doctors, Linnemann proposes introducing a de minimis threshold of 300 euros for efficiency checks. Currently, physicians are often subjected to these checks to ensure they have only billed necessary services, a process which, according to his predecessor Nina Warken, currently accounts for around 70 percent of all efficiency reviews. These checks are known for their high bureaucratic requirements for all parties involved.
Furthermore, the process for prescribing short-term therapies by psychotherapists will be streamlined. Previously, only a subset of sessions-12 out of a possible 24-could be prescribed at one time; under the new rules, patients should receive approval for all sessions simultaneously.
In the realm of medical aids, the major association of statutory health insurance funds (GKV-Spitzenverband) will enter into framework contracts with medical aid associations. These contracts will standardize both documentation requirements and billing processes, making the purchasing of aids like hearing aids or prosthetics easier and ultimately leading to cost savings. This unified framework agreement alone is expected to relieve the economy by over 82 million euros annually.
In a separate change, the draft mandates that health insurance providers must now pre-approve hearing aid applications. Currently, the system allows insurers to waive this pre-approval for approximately 300,000 applications each year.
