[Coordination in medical rehabilitation: demands on professions and institutions]

Coordination of medical treatment, rehabilitation and long-term care is an important demand on the social and health care system. For rehabilitation in Germany, coordination and needs assessment have to be carried out across the responsible administrative bodies (section 10 SGB IX), and common service units (section 22 SGB IX) are to help. For long-term care, a new entitlement for Care counselling (section 7a SGB XI) in Care bases has been established recently in several German Länder (section 92c SGB XI). Hospital social services are obligatory according to the laws of most of the German Länder. Controversially discussed is the question whether responsibility for case management should be placed with the administrative bodies, the health care and social institutions like hospitals, or with third parties like self-help groups. This is regulated differently in the various sectors of the health care system. The professional law of the nursing professions allows to transfer coordination responsibilities to them, but social security law does not. Interprofessionally elaborated and accepted guidelines are an approach to establishing comprehensive standards of responsibility. Needs assessment to be carried out across the sectors should be regulated in social security law.