Frustration among private operators: Corona test centers in Berlin will receive money in May at the earliest – Berlin

Hardly any other federal state has built rapid test centers out of the ground as quickly as Berlin. Almost 150 jobs were created within two weeks. Every citizen can be tested for the corona virus there free of charge. But the private operators will probably have to wait until the middle of May for the state to assume the costs. The first are therefore thinking of giving up again – and there is also strong criticism of the award of the 16 state test sites to the operator DX21.

The private market for rapid tests is almost drained after just a few weeks due to the cutbacks financed by the state. If you want a test, you can get it free of charge from one of the test stations certified by the State of Berlin. That is why the many private operators are trying to obtain approval. The billing of the costs has so far hardly been regulated. You are therefore faced with a choice: give up now or head into the unknown.

The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV) is to reimburse the costs for “citizen tests”. This is regulated nationwide, as is the cost rate: the companies receive 12 euros for the implementation and 6 euros for the quick test itself. An internal letter from the Berlin health administration now shows that KV Berlin will only be able to start billing at the beginning of May. The KV did not respond to a request on Friday.

So far, there are also no nationwide billing criteria, they are not expected by the Federal Association of KV until the coming week. The operators of the to-go test sites must therefore finance their work at least two months in advance without having any income.

For the many test centers, this is like a catastrophe. “I’m currently investing my private savings to pre-finance the tests,” says Nikolai von Schroeders. He is a doctor and one of the heads of the test center at the Kitkat Club in Mitte. “Because of the unclear funding, we are only performing a third of the tests that would be possible.” Instead of 1000 tests a day, a maximum of 300 are currently carried out in the Kitkat Club.

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There is no planning security at all, says von Schroeders. It is unclear whether the Senate will also equip the privately operated to-go test centers with quick tests or whether everything will have to be financed by itself. Two other test operators are therefore thinking about discontinuing their offer.

In response to a request from Tagesspiegel, Moritz Quiske, spokesman for the health administration, confirmed that KV will assume all costs since March 8th. “Regardless of the transfer of the accounting data in May, the costs will be borne from the start,” said the spokesman.

Senate plans 28 million euros for 21 own test sites

The operators of the test centers, mostly companies from the fallow event industry, complain about the lack of information from the Senate. An internal funding proposal now shows that the rapid tests of the State of Berlin are only intended for the state’s own bodies, the private to-go test centers only receive them in an emergency. So you have to buy your own and actually finance it for months without reimbursement. Von Schroeders was not informed of this.

In addition to the certified private test centers, there are currently 16 state-owned test centers. That will cost the Senate more than 28 million euros in the coming months, according to an internal proposal for parliament. These centers are currently operated by the DX21 company from Munich, which is managed by Martina Steiner-Samwer. For the company, which often works with authorities, the order should be lucrative.

Berlin could soon operate 21 of its own test centers via DX21

Five more such test sites are now to be built for almost four million euros, so that Berlin would then operate 21 of its own test centers via the DX21 company. Most of them are located in state or district-owned buildings. “This is a pecuniary benefit worth millions for the company,” says an industry expert. At the same time, DX21 is now also responsible for the certification of all other to-go test centers, for example the one in the Kitkat.

According to information from the Senate, the contract to DX21 was not put out to tender, but awarded directly. Although this is explicitly possible in the pandemic in order to avoid long tendering procedures, it is considered unusual on this scale. On the other hand, it is said from Senate circles, Berlin was able to expand the number of centers so quickly, especially thanks to the fact that it was quickly awarded to the company.

Serious data breach causes horror in the industry

“We kept asking when and how the free tests were offered and how we could help,” says Nikolai von Schröders. “We never got an answer. Suddenly, DX21 was commissioned to set up the test sites in a non-transparent award.” There is speculation in the industry that the company has good connections in health administration. So far there is no evidence of this.

However, the company recently caused a stir with a serious security vulnerability. According to an analysis by the IT collective “Zerforschung” and the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), there were thousands of those tested Highly sensitive data badly secured in the network [ccc.de]. Theoretically, the provider’s name, address, date of birth, telephone number and e-mail address were visible for almost 140,000 customers. Several industry experts said they were horrified.

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The amazement about the multi-million dollar contract extends beyond Berlin. Christoph Neumeier, managing director of the nationwide active test service provider Covimedical, told the Tagesspiegel on Friday: “How the construction of the test centers in Berlin went is a mess. From our point of view, there was no public award.”

Small test centers in particular are suffering

Neumeier and his company operate more than 50 test centers across Germany. Like so many test site operators, he originally comes from the event industry and now employs more than 1000 people. Neumeier says: “All other companies in Berlin were presented with a fait accompli and now have to be certified by the competitor. This has given DX21 a massive competitive advantage. It does not exist in any other federal state.”

Neumeier’s company is also struggling with the lack of accounting regulations nationwide. He reckons that the reimbursement of costs promised by the government will definitely come, but the important question is when that will happen. “At the moment we are calculating with interim financing. Small test centers can only afford this for a very short period of time,” says Neumeier.

The health administration responded on Friday to the criticism of the direct allocation of the state’s own test centers: “DX21 was used as an existing service provider for the first phase from March 8, 2021 in order to be able to start with these test capacities immediately.” The award procedure for the “Berlin Protection Test Concept” has been published on the state’s own award platform since Friday. “Any company can participate.”

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