Appointment at the vaccination center: health insurances send invitations to insured persons with previous illnesses. (Christina Kuhaupt)
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Friedrich Schuhmann is worried about his timely corona vaccination. The 72-year-old classed himself into priority two of the vaccination ordinance with a previous illness and therefore eagerly awaits the invitation to the vaccination center. He found Bremen’s plan not to require medical certificates as proof of pre-existing illnesses, but to let the health insurance companies search their billing data in order to identify people with pre-existing illnesses and then invite them directly to the vaccination. “However, I was disillusioned when I called my private health insurer to inquire about the schedule,” says Schuhmann. There he was told that neither the branch in the state of Bremen nor the board and main administrative level of his insurer in Koblenz had known anything about it.
Schuhmann is not an isolated case. Readers report similar experiences in several letters to the WESER-KURIER. Almost all of the private health insurers located all over Germany were surprised by the task assigned to them. This leads to fear in those affected. In a letter it says: “My health insurance is not aware of any invitations. Do I have to die because I have the wrong insurance? Nobody knows about the hotline 116 117. “
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In fact, the private insurance companies – unlike statutory health insurers – have not yet sent out a single invitation, as confirmed by Stefen Reker, spokesman for the Association of Private Health Insurers (PKV). “That will start soon,” he assures. The private health insurers have been informed that the umbrella association and the Bremen Senate have made all the necessary agreements. The project was coordinated and decided in all decision-making bodies of the association with the members. Only the practical implementation is still pending.
Reker cannot explain why insurers told their customers that they knew nothing about it or that they would not participate in it. Presumably, the information about it has not yet reached every customer service. As far as the schedule is concerned, the PKV spokesman refers to the vaccination ordinance, which has laid down the legal framework for the invitation procedure via the health insurance companies since March 8th. In it, the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance (GKV) was given a deadline of March 18 to translate the list of previous illnesses from the regulation into so-called ICD codes.
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With this number-letter coding, the respective medical diagnoses are encoded in the billing data. If, for example, chronic lung diseases are mentioned in the regulation, the associated ICD codes must first be specified. The list that has now been compiled comprises a total of several thousand codes. This is the basis on which the health insurers search their insurance data.
“We were only able to send this list to the insurers last week,” says Reker. The same applies to a compilation of the Bremen postcodes. Bremen is so far the only federal state that uses this invitation procedure via the cash registers. According to Michael Lempe, CEO of Handelskrankenkasse HKK, there are increasing signs that Lower Saxony is also enjoying the Bremen process. Reker confirms this: “Lower Saxony has expressed interest, but has not yet made a final decision.”
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The AOK in Bremen has not waited for the first 4,000 invitations to vaccinate its insured persons for the agreed diagnosis list of the statutory health insurance. It was the first health insurer to implement the Bremen procedure 14 days ago. “Many pre-existing conditions are clear. Now we compare it with the official list. Anyone who initially fell through the cracks will soon receive the invitation, ”says AOK spokesman Jörn Hons.
Down to business
Vaccinate over Easter
The vaccination center in Bremen will also be open every day over the Easter holidays and has also assigned vaccination appointments for this time. In Bremerhaven, however, it is closed on Easter Monday and on Sundays anyway. According to a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health, Lower Saxony has instructed the municipal vaccination centers to continue vaccinating over the holidays. In the district of Osterholz it was previously stated in the district council that the center would probably remain closed at Easter. As in Bremerhaven, the reason for the closure is given as the amount of vaccine: “We get that little bit of vaccine on the other days,” said the crisis team leader of the Osterholz district, Heike Schumacher.
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