[The catalogue of ambulatory sickness benefits -- realistic? Feasible? Put into practice?]

Ambulatory surgery at German hospitals is an underdeveloped field. New legal regulations allow contracts between hospitals and insurance companies which will improve this situation. Besides the establishment of quality parameters and a fixed payment for the operations the contract lists 307 operations which can be performed on an outpatient basis. However, only few operations need to be done obligatory as ambulatory surgery. This reflects just incompletely what is already operated ambulatory outside the hospitals. Due to altered financial structures in case of in-patient treatment and because of a decrease of hospital beds, the listed operations in the contract may be reviewed and ambulatory surgery at the hospitals will increase in the future. The hospitals need to change their structure to establish successfully ambulatory surgery within the hospital setting. Finally, German patients need to be convinced that operations done on an out-patient basis show the same quality standards like procedures under in-patient conditions.