A recently published study by the Central Institute for Health Insurance Physician Care (Zi) shows that medical care centers, or MVZs for short, were predominantly economically profitable in 2017. In cooperation with the Federal Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) and the Federal Association MVZ (BMVZ), the Zi surveyed 212 MVZs of 2,827 MVZs approved at the end of December 2017 for the analysis. The MVZs differ according to their sponsorship. According to this, 36 percent were operated by contract physicians, the remainder were run by hospitals (50 percent) and municipalities or combinations of these. Those responsible for the MVZs were then surveyed online between January and March 2019. The economic situation at that time could be described as quite good, with 75 percent of those surveyed assessing their situation as (rather) good. Most of the MVZs that were managed by SHI-accredited physicians (84 percent) were operating profitably. The overall situation for those run by hospitals and municipalities, on the other hand, looked worse; here only 47 percent were in the profit zone. In the case of MVZs, a distinction must also be made as to which interdisciplinary care services were mainly available. On average, MVZs offered 3.6 different specialties and departments at that time. Among the MVZs not led by contract physicians there were for example with seven per cent only MVZ cared for by family doctors. 50 per cent were settled in this category in the specializedmedical supply range and 41 per cent had family doctors employed, but not only. The analysis showed also that with the institutions led contract-medically however 46 per cent were operated only by family doctors. According to the study, the proportion of female doctors and psychotherapists is also continuing to rise, because on average each MVZ employed seven women almost four years ago, and the trend is still rising. In addition, hospitals and municipalities had an average of eight salaried doctors, while only five salaried doctors worked in MVZs run by contract physicians. Contract physician MVZs had more non-medical staff with 18 employees. In other combinations of providers, only eleven employees in this category were employed.
Source: Ärzteblatt
