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Dispute over patient transport in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern continues: VSPV demonstrates solidarity with the taxi state association.
The managing director of the VSPV Sascha Waltemate and the General Authorized Signatory and head of the VSPV's capital office Patrick Meinhardt have come to Anklam to exchange views with Guido Sembach. The chairman of the state association has been fighting for months against what he sees as insufficient remuneration for medical transports – and against contractual practices that he regards as unlawful.
"For us, it goes without saying that we support our friends in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the fight for adequate remuneration for medical transports by the health insurers," say Sascha Waltemate and Patrick Meinhardt.
Special agreements with individual taxi operators
The conflict is sparked by so-called special agreements between health insurance funds and individual taxi companies. Waltemate has therefore recently contacted both the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Health in order to clarify the legal situation. His position is clear:
“Special agreements for the mandatory service area must be disclosed or submitted for approval. Regardless of the mode, the approving authority not only has the right but the obligation to conduct a full review of the adequacy! Special agreements for the mandatory service area can only be concluded by the majority of the local taxi trade or by associations, in order to ensure parity of bargaining power between the contracting parties.”
Bargaining power of the trade is being undermined
If contracts are negotiated individually, from the associations' perspective the bargaining power of the industry as a whole declines. The VSPV calls this a structural imbalance – and views the authorities as obliged to curb this practice.
To assist, the delegation brings a report prepared by the consulting firm Linne + Krause. It analyzes the economic viability of such agreements in North Rhine-Westphalia and comes to a clear conclusion: individual agreements with health insurers are problematic. For Sembach, the paper is more than just an argumentation aid.
“We are fighting as the Taxi- and rental-car association of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on all fronts, in the districts, together with the IHKs, with policymakers. The VSPV's report that individual agreements between health insurers and entrepreneurs are fundamentally illegal is of central importance.”
Taxi convoy in early April
The tone has grown harsher for weeks. At the beginning of April, the association organized a taxi convoy to draw attention to its situation. In parallel, Sembach is conducting talks with the state government.
“In my personal conversations with the Prime Minister, the Health Minister, and the Minister for Economic Affairs and Transport, I have made it clear that politics must act now and – if necessary – remind the permitting authorities of their legal duties by means of a decree.”
That the conflict escalates is clearly due to the stance of the health insurance funds. A previously negotiated offer from the association was rejected – from the participants' point of view, surprisingly explicit. Meinhardt and Waltemate were on site when the rejection arrived. Since then, pressure on the authorities to intervene has been growing.
Waltemate puts it bluntly: “The enforcement deficit at the permitting authorities in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern deprives the local association of the taxi and rental-car industry of its bargaining power – and thereby undermines the statutory protections of the passenger transport law in an impermissible and unreasonable manner!”
“Meinhardt does not spare criticism of the funds either: ‘The behavior of the health insurance funds is unmatched in its emotional coldness and arrogance. Here the state government must now take responsibility and act if it does not want the treatment of sick people to become a campaign issue.’”
In Anklam, this reveals a conflict that extends beyond the region
At the same time, Meinhardt highlights the collaboration among the associations: “As things are currently going here, it should actually always be like this. It is about the future of the trade; it does not matter who is organized in which country. Pick up the phone and support each other—this is lived solidarity.”
The state association for the taxi and rental-car trade of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern advocates for adequate compensation for patient transport for all taxi operators in the federal state – and not only fights the uncompromising stance of the health insurance funds, but also battles the lack of solidarity among some taxi operators.
Content automatically translated.
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