The Berufsgenossenschaftliche Unfallklinik Murnau is taking legal action against the Free State of Bavaria.
Those responsible do not see the renowned trauma center adequately compensated for financial losses in the wake of the pandemic.
Murnau
- The forecast sounds bleak: Sarah Heinze, managing director of the professional association accident clinic Murnau, currently estimates the loss that her house will have to cope with this year due to the corona pandemic.
In the high phase, politicians had instructed the hospitals to keep beds free in exchange for compensation so that doctors can immediately treat those with Covid-19 who are seriously ill.
For the time being, predictable, non-urgent operations were canceled.
All of this tore a hole in the clinic's coffers.
There should be compensation payments for this.
The UKM, which belongs to the association of BG clinics, felt the consequences of the general decree massively and was only 40 percent occupied in some cases.
"Due to the lockdown, many services could not be performed," says Heinze.
The financial losses that were incurred could no longer be compensated for in this financial year.
The Free State has not yet paid the flat fee in full
What weighs heavily: The Free State, as Heinze describes it, has "not yet paid in full" for the flat-rate fee applied for - this is what hospitals receive for intensive care beds provided in the corona pandemic.
This means that not all beds kept free in Murnau - and thus lost revenues - were covered by the flat rate.
The accident clinic drew consequences: "In this context we were forced to sue the Free State of Bavaria for payment," explains Heinze.
The flagship company is demanding around four million euros, the outstanding amounts for the reserved beds.
As in numerous other hospitals, the economic situation of the trauma clinic is tense.
Even when politics relaxed the corona restrictions, there was initially no financial light at the end of the tunnel.
"Many patients had concerns about being treated in hospitals, so even after the lockdown, further revenues were lost," says Heinze, describing the problem.
The trauma clinic is currently very busy again.
Nevertheless, it is not yet possible to say how the situation will develop by the end of the year.
Heinze is currently coming to the above-mentioned gloomy forecast: the pandemic-related loss of an estimated ten million euros.
UKM is arguably the only house that has gone to court
A clinic that is suing the Free State in the wake of the Corona consequences: "That is of course unusual," says Siegfried Hasenbein, Managing Director of the Bayerische Krankenhausgesellschaft (BKG), the association of around 360 hospitals in the Free State.
“But what's common this year?
The situation of the clinics is also extremely unusual: They have been obliged to keep beds free and to cancel treatments. ”Nevertheless, Hasenbein does not know of any other house that has taken this matter to court.
He can understand the reaction: "When a clinic has such high financial losses, I understand in principle that it keeps all paths open." Hasenbein is unable to judge legally whether the Free State is the right addressee for the lawsuit.
In this case, the state distributes federal funds and one of its authorities decides on the applications for compensation payments.
This has the curious consequence that the Murnau sister clinics were granted their lump sums - and accordingly do not complain.
The German hospital landscape cannot generally be lumped together when it comes to compensation payments.
According to Hasenbein, economic problems tend to plague hospitals that treat a particularly large number of Covid 19 patients and at the same time had to cope with a loss of revenue.
Meanwhile, in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Clinic, hope is growing that the worst fears will not come true.
Managing director Bernward Schröter expressed concern months ago that the annual minus in his house in the wake of the pandemic could add up to almost five million euros.
He is now more confident - with the caveat that the next few weeks will go as well as the last few.
In this case, a deficit of perhaps even less than three million euros seems possible.
Schröter cannot complain about the state compensation payments either - in a double sense: “After initial difficulties,” he says, “we got what we applied for one-to-one”.
