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Corona test centers are the focus of a draft of the Corona Test Ordinance
Photo: Swen Pförtner / dpa
After the trickery in Corona test centers, the Federal Ministry of Health wants to tighten the test regulation.
SPIEGEL has received a draft bill from the ministry in which it says that "existing regulations for monitoring the proper execution and billing of tests will be refined and new instruments for effective monitoring of the test infrastructure will be added."
At the end of May, suspected cases in North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria became known.
According to research by WDR, NDR and »Süddeutscher Zeitung«, companies are said to have billed a lot more corona citizen tests than they actually carried out.
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn then came under fire because his test strategy started quickly and unbureaucratically, but was apparently also prone to fraud.
In order to prevent further cases of fraud, several measures are presented in the draft bill:
Test providers must therefore guarantee that the tests are carried out properly.
The responsible bodies of the public health service are to be given further powers for the review.
In this way, they can obtain information from other authorities and, among other things, fall back on controls by the local regulatory authorities.
The remuneration options for tests are to be standardized and adjusted in terms of amount.
So far, private test operators have been paid a flat rate of twelve euros for a smear test.
If it goes according to the ministerial draft, this flat rate should drop to eight euros on July 1st.
Funding as test centers should only be open to public health facilities and the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians.
So far, all costs for the construction and ongoing operation of test centers have been reimbursed - including private providers.
So far, operators of several test centers have been able to collectively invoice the tests.
This should be repealed with the aim of transparency.
Accordingly, operators have to create separate accounts for their test centers.
In order to ensure taxation, the statutory health insurance associations are to introduce an obligation to notify the tax authorities.
The documented accounting documents for the tests are sent by the operators of the test centers to the associations of statutory health insurance physicians.
According to the draft bill, the measures are intended to relieve the statutory health insurances of around 1.4 billion euros - only in 2021. This figure results from retroactive reimbursements and the »future (re) financing of the previously from the liquidity reserve of the health fund costs borne «.
The entry into force of the regulation is indicated in the draft for June 17th.
It is unclear when the new test regulation will actually come into force, as there are still talks on voting.
After the reports on the fraud in test centers, the Greens, among others, pushed for a new test regulation.
The test ordinance has "massive weaknesses and loopholes" that "can be seen to be exploited," said Green health expert Janosch Dahmen to SPIEGEL.
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