Cologne - Serious allegations against Germany's doctors, more and more established professionals, especially orthopedic surgeons, urologists, ENT doctors collect - from hospitals bounty for the referral of patients - up to $ 1,000 for a hip operation, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung FAZ.
"These are not just isolated incidents, such as proposing two three years," Professor Rudolf Kosters, president of the German Hospital Association alarm. "We hear such cases nationwide from urban areas."
It is as simple as illegal principle: make the referring doctor pressure, often in conjunction with local counterparts: either we get money or to recommend patients for hip surgery (bringing the clinic from 6900 to 8800 € per case) in a financially courteous clinic.
A Cologne insider confirmed: "A head of a clinic in the right bank is downright blackmail, there is a noticeable influx of private patients to some private hospital in Cologne."
Prof. Manfred Wirth, president of the German Society of Urology, sees the "common practice in all regions" highly critical: "There is a risk that patients not be admitted to the hospital best for them." Or they end up prematurely in the hospital. Eugen Brysch, Chief of the German Hospice Foundation: "seriously ill and dying people are paid an average of five times between nursing home and hospital to and fro, sure, often unnecessarily."
Packed is the "briefing package" tricky in contracts for pre-and postoperative benefits. Because that is flowing at a hospital admission money, "totally prohibited," says Bundesärztekammer President Joerg-Dietrich Hoppe.
Each insured may choose the law during an operation, in which hospital he goes to the staid and familiar to medical advice.
