The Netherlands can provide delayed care in foreign practices
The solution to the enormous pressure that the delayed care puts on Dutch hospitals lies abroad. Many operations and solutions can simply be performed in Belgium and Germany, so they should be made there. several healthcare experts argue against BNR.
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Professor of economics Jochen Mierau of the University of Groningen is surprised that care is not provided in neighboring countries. ‘There are almost no waiting lists in Germany. According to European guidelines, national operations must be financed if it takes too long in the Netherlands and there is capacity in Germany.’
Everything has therefore been arranged that you can receive care anywhere in Europe and that care is not yet reimbursed. According to the Dutch health care authority, two hundred thousand operations still have to be performed as a result of the postponement due to the corona crisis. The fact that not much is moved abroad has everything to do with market forces in healthcare, says microbiologist and OMT member Alex Friedrich: going abroad. It’s only going to get harder, patients say. Patients who feel that the request to go abroad is undesirable.’
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However, not all care is suitable to be found abroad: for acute care of complex operations it is better to stay in the Netherlands, but for the more outpatient treatments such as knee surgery or the removal of a gallbladder you can easily stay in Germany. rightly so, says professor of health economics Mierau.
Not all patients know that they can also be placed abroad for an operation and health insurers have to declare. The government must therefore undertake activities to overcome these hurdles and eliminate the care backlog as quickly as possible. Only then will the problems in healthcare be solved, says OMT member Alex Friedrich: ‘The system has to change, because it costs more money if people pay late. The faster your people execute, the better, it’s not good to have waiting lists.’
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