Health certificate
The medical card was in the Federal Republic of Germany the precursor of the health insurance card . The note contained the same data as the card introduced in 1995. The doctor documented his treatments on the back, in order to settle accounts with the statutory health insurance associations . A health insurance certificate had to be presented to the family doctor for each quarter in which medical treatment was necessary . If a visit to the specialist was necessary, the family doctor issued a referral .
There were also health insurance certificates for dental treatment . A tooth scheme was shown on the back of these notes for billing and documentation purposes .
The situation in Austria was similar before the introduction of the e-card . The health certificate for dental treatments was called the dental treatment certificate or colloquially a dental certificate .
In the GDR , the function of the health insurance certificate was integrated into the social security card ; A sickness certificate was understood to mean a certificate of incapacity for work . Colloquially, this term is still used today.
History of the health insurance certificate in Germany
In the statutory health insurance , the members had to apply for or collect the health insurance certificates from the health insurance companies earlier if necessary. At the beginning of a quarter, this led to an immense administrative burden for the cash registers, especially because back then the notes still had to be issued by hand or with a typewriter .
The health record books have therefore been introduced to simplify matters . They were sent once a year to each member and contained four billing slips for the general practitioner, two for the dentist and one authorization certificate each for a preventive health check-up and a preventive cancer check-up . For children with family insurance there was a separate booklet with four health insurance certificates, which the insured parent had to sign for minors under 15 years of age before visiting the doctor. In addition to the actual health insurance certificates, there were also authorization certificates for child screening examinations, which had to be requested from the health insurance company or were later also sent in a booklet.
After a pilot project for an “insurance card” in the form of a plastic card the size of a credit card was unsuccessful at the end of the 1970s, it was not until 1995 that the health insurance card replaced all health and entitlement certificates.
The situation is different for refugees, who continue to receive a health insurance certificate from the responsible social welfare office every quarter.
Other meanings
In Austria , the health insurance certificate was the forerunner of the health insurance check , which was replaced by the e-card in 2006 . Colloquially, the certificate of incapacity for work is often referred to as a "health insurance certificate".