In order to avert the GP initiative, Federal Councilor Berset has drawn up a master plan under great political pressure. In it, measures are taken up that are largely undisputed. The promotion of family medicine at universities is certainly a necessary measure that finds a majority in all political camps. The cantons must find a way to increase their contribution to the additional costs of the university cantons. Nor does the adjustment of laboratory tariffs require a political masterstroke. The list of analyses can be adapted by the FOPH on its own authority.
So what about the 200 million that is to be packed into the pay packets of female primary care physicians as a pay raise? To pay out this amount, the master plan calls for showing doctors and health insurers the ropes. In the future, the six newly hired officials will determine which rates are appropriate and which are not.
Some specialists are to be stripped here and there and distributed among primary care physicians. This subjects rate setting to arbitrary government action and makes rates a political pawn. But political solutions are known to be solutions that have not much to do with logic, because if they were logical, they would not be called political!
The FMH, H+ and the MTK have been working intensively on the overall revision of TARMED since the beginning of 2012. They are following a fixed roadmap with completion at the end of 2015. Various chapters have already been revised together with the medical societies and it is apparent that a business adjustment of the positions will lead to considerable changes in the tariff structure – also correcting downwards where appropriate. The overall revision of the TARMED tariff structure will “automatically” lead to a redistribution of tax point volumes due to adjustments in business management and medical technology, and thus to an upgrading of the work and activities of primary care providers.
The BAG’s masterful intervention would be the beginning of the end of partnership-based collective bargaining. The unfortunate tariff protection would thus be further enriched with a state tariff dictate.
Let’s let the tempting 200 million pass and put our faith in the negotiations of the collective bargaining partners.
Cordially, your
Josef Widler, MD
HAUSARZT PRAXIS 2013; 8(11): 1
