Berlin To protect once morest increasing additional payments for care in the home, the first reliefs will take effect in the New Year. In addition to the payments from the nursing care fund, home residents now receive a new surcharge, which increases with the length of the nursing care. The personal share for pure care should decrease in the first year in the home by 5 percent, in the second by 25 percent, in the third by 45 percent and from the fourth year by 70 percent.
The background to this is that long-term care insurance – unlike health insurance – only bears part of the costs. For home residents, there are also payments for accommodation, meals and investments in the facilities.
The German Foundation for Patient Protection criticized that the changes on January 1 meant pitfalls and disappointments for the 820,000 residents. “The January statements that have already been sent must be checked very carefully,” said Eugen Brysch, the board member of the German press agency.
Because in the year you move in, the long-term care insurance will now cover 5 percent of the pure care costs. This average of 44 euros per month would have to be deducted from the total costs – according to the latest data from the Association of Substitute Health Insurance Funds as of July 1, this was an average of 2125 euros per month.
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In practice, the supplements in the first and second year in the home would not bring any relief, Brysch made clear. The total costs for a home place rose annually by more than 100 euros on a nationwide average. “Since the vast majority of nursing home residents have already died in their third year, the nursing reform has almost no effect on the exploding expenditure here.” If the new federal government wants to close the pay gap for elderly care workers compared to nursing, it must also explain how the additional expenses for higher salaries are to be met.
The reform initiated by the old federal government is also aimed at better pay for urgently needed care workers. From September 1, 2022, there will only be supply contracts with institutions that pay according to collective bargaining agreements or a similar amount. In geriatric care with around 1.2 million employees, just under half of the collective wage has been paid so far.
To finance this, the care contribution for people aged 23 and over without children will increase from 3.3 to 3.4 percent on January 1st. In addition, from 2022, the federal government will for the first time provide a permanent subsidy of one billion euros per year for long-term care insurance. In outpatient care, the benefits in kind will be increased by five percent to take account of rising payments, as the Ministry of Health explained.
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