Home » Health » Despite criticism from panel doctors: Lauterbach is sticking to corona citizen tests

Despite criticism from panel doctors: Lauterbach is sticking to corona citizen tests

The Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians no longer want to bill the Corona citizen tests, they wrote to Federal Health Minister Lauterbach. He is sticking to the new test regulation – but wants to talk to the panel doctors.

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) has confirmed that there will continue to be corona citizen tests. The discussions did not change the fact that “the citizen tests are still available,” said Lauterbach on Friday in Berlin.

He was responding to a letter from the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) and the state associations. In a letter to Lauterbach on Thursday, they stated that they “would no longer be able to bill and pay out” citizen tests in the future.

Lauterbach said the KBV had a legitimate concern. She wanted clarity on how to implement the new regulation. “We will come to good regulations in the next few days,” he said. “This is only about improvements in the administrative process.”

The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians criticized the fact that they only had 4 hours and 15 minutes to comment on the new regulations before the new test regulation was published. In addition, the associations emphasized that they “could not begin to check” the correctness of the accounts.

Since Thursday, the citizen tests, which were previously free of charge for everyone, have only been available for certain groups such as children up to five years of age, pregnant women in the first three months or visitors to hospitals and nursing homes without additional payment. Normally, a deductible of three euros has to be paid for a quick test.

Lauterbach defended the citizen tests, saying they make sense. “The citizen tests prevent chains of infection,” said the minister. The KBV chairman Andreas Gassen, on the other hand, calls for the tests to be abolished, he described them in the “Bild” newspaper as nonsensical. The citizen tests are “much too expensive, the bureaucratic effort is huge and the epidemiological significance is zero”.

Broadcast: Fritz, 07/01/2022, 3:30 p.m

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