[Legal forms of cooperation among physicians]

Medical occupational rights introduced in the sixties have entitled physicians to cooperate with one another. This form of professional cooperation is subject to the general corporate law, the medical occupational law, and the panel-doctor's right. The legal framework for the cooperation of physicians is provided by the federal law of the General Medical Council, the medical law in each German federal state, and the individual occupational ordinances of the single medical councils. These ordinances are essentially based on the pattern occupation ordinance approved during the Annual General Meeting of German Physicians (Deutsche Arztetag). This is regulated in the Federal German Code of Social Law Chapter V and in the panel-doctor's right (with approval of the physicians), and contains further ordinances regulating the legal cooperation of physicians. A novelty concerning the cooperation of physicians is the so-called "Medical Care Center", which has been introduced by law to reform the German health system. The Medical Care Center is a multidisciplinary institution that enables physicians to work as employees or as contracted physicians. For the set-up of a Medical Care Center all legal forms (including all kinds of legal entities) can be chosen. Some details of this recent change of law are in dispute.