Service provider
In the German health system, service providers are all those groups of people who provide services for those insured by the health insurance companies. The designation is used in the fourth chapter of the fifth book of the Social Security Code . It lists the service providers, describes the relationship between the statutory health insurances (GKV) and the service providers and obliges the GKV to include the service providers in the responsibility for the quality and economic efficiency of the services in contracts. The central associations of the statutory health insurance regularly set the framework conditions for service providers in joint guidelines.
In order to be able to provide the insured with the benefits in kind , the health insurance companies conclude contracts with the service providers. The provision of services is subject to strict legal regulations, e.g. B. the economic efficiency requirement and quality regulations.
The service providers include contract doctors , contract dentists , pharmacies , contract psychotherapists , hospitals, providers of therapeutic and auxiliary services ( physiotherapists , occupational therapists , voice, speech and speech therapists (e.g. speech therapists , clinical speech scientists, etc.), orthopedic shoemakers , orthopedic technicians , Medical supply stores ), manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, midwives , people, institutions and companies that provide home nursing , home care help , home care or domestic help, emergency services and ambulance companies. Service providers can be natural persons (e.g. resident doctors or physiotherapists), legal persons (e.g. GmbHs , GbRs ) and organizations (hospitals).
All service providers must have an institution identifier (IK). The transmission of the IK is one of several conditions for the settlement of the services provided with the insurance providers. For most health care services, billing is regulated in Section 302 of the Book V of the Social Code.
Usually, the term service provider is used in administrative or economic terms to denote the level of the providers of medical services. Complementary to this are the levels of patients as consumers of medical services and those of the cost carriers ( health insurance companies ) who pay for the services provided in full or in part.
criticism
The term “service provider” is, as mentioned, a legal term from SGB V, but it is perceived as derogatory by the health care professionals.
Resolution V 58 of the 113th German Medical Association 2010 states: “The German Medical Association should once again decide that the medical profession no longer uses the term“ service provider ”. The term is incompatible with the dignity of the medical art of healing of doctors in clinics and practices. The vocabulary is used by interested parties to promote the deprofessionalization of the medical profession ” .
The representative assembly of the State Medical Association of Baden-Württemberg agrees with the resolution of the 5th Representative Assembly of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians on May 30, 2011 in Kiel and declares that “from now on the term“ service provider ”will be viewed as discriminatory by the medical community in Baden-Württemberg and This means that in all laws, ministerial directives and in your own written documents that define or regulate the medical activity of doctors in Baden-Württemberg in particular, the correct professional title "doctor" must be replaced. The medical profession of Baden-Württemberg claims that where medical work is discussed in public, doctors must be mentioned, especially to distinguish between non-medical professions such as pharmacists, physiotherapists, midwives, etc. "
"With immediate effect, the term" service provider "should no longer be used in all official written documents, publications, laws and draft laws, as well as in instructions from the ministries" : The delegates' assembly of the State Medical Association of Hesse demanded this in a resolution in November 2011. "The term" service provider "is discriminatory and degrading."
The tenor of all resolutions was that the job title “doctor” should appear on the license to practice medicine and not “service provider”.
Dentists are part of the so-called service providers in the vocabulary of health administration.
Individual evidence
- ↑ German Medical Congress
- ^ Resolutions of the 2nd Representative Assembly of the State Medical Association on July 23, 2011 in Stuttgart - Discrimination of the medical profession
- ^ Service providers , Section 5: Dentists and dental technicians as service providers
