Therapy freedom
Therapy freedom describes a principle in medical treatment according to which a doctor, based on his professional competence, is basically entitled to the free choice of the treatment method that he wants to suggest to the patient.
In principle, the service provider has a wide margin of discretion when choosing the therapy that appears medically necessary. However, he must be based on the current state of scientific knowledge and exercise the necessary care. If there is no generally recognized therapy method for a (life-threatening) illness, the statutory health insurance even has to reimburse healing methods whose effectiveness has not yet been proven, provided that there is a certain possibility of success. The Federal Constitutional Court confirmed this leeway in a decision from 2005.
The legal obligation for advanced training results from the duty of care . In the event of malpractice, a doctor cannot refer to a lack of experience or insufficient training.
The freedom of therapy is restricted in the choice between equivalent procedures and the patient's freedom of choice. No action may be taken against the will of a patient. In the case of equivalent procedures, the degree of risk and the probability of success must be taken into account. In the context of statutory health insurance , the economic efficiency principle must also be observed.
With the newer managed care approaches in health care, the freedom of therapy regularly serves as an argument for the skeptical attitude of the medical profession towards the required guideline-based treatment of evidence-based medicine . The service providers fear an impermissible restriction of their freedom of therapy in favor of so-called “ cookbook medicine ”.
literature
- Klaus Ulsenheimer : Medical criminal law in practice , 4th edition, CFMüller, Heidelberg, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8114-3610-7
- Karsten Fehn: The medical treatment error in outline in: Journal for medical training and quality in health care 95/2001, pp. 469–474
