Integrierte Versorgung in Deutschland - ein empirisches Schlaglicht

Integrated health care is one of the major issues in German health care policy at this moment. This is due to recent changes in social security law, which now allows for direct contracts between providers and statutory health insurances. The changes were enacted in January 2004 and thus far over 2,000 contracts between hospitals, physicians and health insurances have been reported. Over 4 million patients and nearly half a billion Euros in fees are affected by that change. Little work has been done in Germany so far in evaluating those contracts. In addition, there is merely no information on the experiences from physicians, patients or health administrators. The paper looks empirically on a sample from physicians and health administrators, who were being asked via a standardized questionnaire on their thoughts now that two years under the new system have gone by.