With the new hospital reform of the Federal Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach, a new remuneration system will be introduced. Hospitals should no longer treat as many patients as possible for revenue reasons. Today, clinics receive a fixed amount per patient or treatment case. These flat rates per case should decrease. In return, there should be fixed amounts for the provision of staff, an emergency room or the necessary medical technology.

But what does this really mean for your hospital stay?

This is what clinical reform means if you need an operation

With the new reform, all hospitals will no longer be able to perform complex operations. Patients then have to go to a special clinic for oncological surgery or difficult heart surgery. The background is that costs in the health system should also be reduced. Because when a specialist operates, the chances of recovery increase and the patient emerges more quickly from the spiral of the disease.

According to Lauterbach, one third of cancer treatments are currently carried out in two thirds of German clinics, which due to lack of experience are completely unaware of it. The result is serious complications such as sepsis (blood poisoning). That should change now.

This is the time it will take to get to the clinic by car

Long trips to the clinic are not uncommon, especially in rural areas. According to the current German Atlas, patients now need at least 16 minutes to reach the nearest clinic. This is changing enormously with the reform. Patients should reach the nearest emergency clinic (internal medicine, trauma surgery) within 30 minutes. Specialized clinics should be within a maximum of 40 minutes by car.

However, when planning it is also important to consider how many residents would be affected by longer travel times if corresponding services did not exist in their area. The various federal states are responsible for hospital planning.

Is the hospital near me closing?

This question is not easy to answer. At first glance it seems as if some clinics are closing. Although the reform provides for fewer hospitals, it should at least increase quality in the remaining ones. However, so-called level 1i hospitals could still be necessary in certain regions where many people would have to make longer trips. They combine basic inpatient care services with outpatient services from specialists and family doctors.

Lauterbach's reform will “significantly change” the hospital landscape. So far there are “cities with oversupply” and “areas with shortage of supply” in rural regions, the draft says.

Costs are rising for patients

Health insurance companies are already warning of rising costs for patients. 25 billion euros from the health fund are planned to be used to support hospitals in Germany between 2026 and 2035. Converted, this means an additional annual burden on the health fund of 2.5 billion euros.

“These additional billions for hospitals, which will come from the health fund and directly from health insurance companies, will consequently lead to an increase in contribution rates,” said Florian Lanz, spokesman for the National Association of Savings Banks. sickness officers. the “Deutsche Ärzteblatt”.

Every additional euro spent must be collected by taxpayers,” Florian Lanz, spokesperson for the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, told the German Medical Journal. Taxpayers have to pay for every additional euro spent.

Many criticisms of the new clinical reform

The health policy spokesperson for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Tino Sorge, told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag: “The funding proposals are completely ill-conceived and cause greater uncertainty at local level. Deaths in hospitals continue unhindered.” Judith Gerlach (CSU) accused Lauterbach of “once again failing to include the federal states beforehand.”

The head of the German Hospital Association, Gerald Gaß, stated that there was a lack of “effective economic security for hospitals to compensate for inflation in 2024.” FDP politician Andrew Ullmann stressed: “There will only be deaths in hospitals if we delay the necessary reforms. We need the reforms to achieve better care for the population.”

Green health expert Janosch Dahmen pointed out that there is a shortage of doctors and nurses. At the same time, the number of elderly and sick people in need of care is growing. Quality of care increasingly poor, says Dahmen