Review sites and portals are commonplace on the Internet nowadays. The huge ranges of products, services and organisations today have meant that in Germany, review sites have steadily grown. Examples include people offering assessments on hotels and travel, as well as opinions on teachers or professors. Even in the health care industry, these are becoming widespread.
For some time, there have been websites for patients to evaluate the physicians provided through their health insurance fund. Now, the insured will have the opportunity to assess the quality of physicians and subsequently find a good doctor. As part of an online questionnaire, users of the „Health Navigator“ can now evaluate a particular fund according to the practice areas and staff, physician communication, treatment and overall impression. According to the health insurance funds, these doctor reviews are becoming increasingly popular among the insured.
Now, however, roles are being reversed. As of Friday, a new portal initiative of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (Kassenärztlichen Bundesvereinigung) is in place (www.Krankenkassen-Navigator.kbv.de).
„When assessing the insurance funds – which is a perfectly fine process as long as specific criteria are met – then we shall be able to see whether or not funds are utilising their contributions to provide a good supply of health care,“ said the Chairman of the KBV, Andreas Köhler, in a recent statement regarding the funds. (Quote translated by kon.media)
As part of the publicly accessible Internet portal, the panel of 155,000 doctors and psychotherapists will evaluate the therapeutic freedom, service and bureaucracy of health insurance. This will then result in a list of the ten „best“ and „worst“ amongst the approximately 140 statutory sickness funds. The plan is to review them by school grades. Based on the results one can then come up with the a set of weaknesses and opportunities for improvement for the funds.
The online portal is to be released today in Berlin as part of a meeting of the panel of doctors. The meeting is concerning the fee dispute with the statutory sickness funds. Here, the talks are between the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians and the leading association of statutory health insurance (GKV), initially suspended until the 4th October. Whether the disappointment of the doctors in the current fee dispute will have an impact on their opinions of the funds in the online portal remains to be seen.