Criticism of the maintenance effort for health cards: Association calls for digital solution

Health cards in Germany have to be re-read by the family doctor every quarter. For some people, private care providers do this. Association President Meurer speaks of “crazy”. From the association's perspective, a legal solution has long been available.

Employees of private nursing services must repeatedly bring insurance cards of those in need of care to doctors' offices to be scanned. Every available minute is needed to care for the increasing number of people in need of care, said the President of the Federal Association of Private Providers of Social Services, Bernd Meurer. “Germany simply can no longer afford the madness of having nurses wait for hours in doctors’ offices or driving around insurance cards.”

Many people in need of care have to have their insurance card scanned at a doctor's office once a quarter. This applies, for example, if you live in a home and take prescription medication or receive nursing care at home. Employees of nursing services and nursing facilities often bring the cards to the practices.

Association President Meurer warned: "There is hardly anything more valuable in Germany than the working hours of nursing staff." He demanded: “Digitalization must be taken seriously and really simplify processes.” According to a scenario calculation by the association, there is great potential for relief.

Two full-time weeks of work per year per card

In a survey, 1,016 member companies stated: Reading electronic health cards quarterly causes an average of 21.6 hours of organizational effort per quarter. Calculated over a year, that’s 86.4 hours. Extrapolated to 26,799 outpatient services and inpatient care facilities nationwide, this would result in an expenditure of around 2.3 million hours per year. In this scenario, there would be an average waiting time of 26 minutes per practice visit.

The association demands: Insured people, employees of care facilities or relatives should no longer have to show up at practices with a card or smartphone in the future. Instead, the law should regulate that practices can access the insured status digitally and billably via the healthcare system's protected information highway (telematics infrastructure). This means that the time saved could be used again for care and care-related tasks.