Germany’s most outspoken medical practitioner, Bodo Schiffmann, has received a tip-off from a colleague, alerting him to the fact that in the state of Baden-Würtemberg at least, certain medical doctors (GPs, pediatricians, ENT, lung specialists) can register their clinic as specializing in coronavirus; this is called a “Corona-Schwerpunktspraxis”. The form is available here. What is not on the form is the handsome sum that each clinic allegedly receives: euro 12,500 per quarter to make itself available to run SARS-Cov-2 testing and to treat COVID-19 patients. What is certain though is that in addition to that sum, clinics can receive euro 200 per practitioner per day for spending 8 hours on this focus area, and for each consultation, they get euro 10 extra for testing each suspected COVID-19 patient, and an additional euro 100 per 20 tests carried out (see here). Go figure!
I wonder if similar incentives are being offered in other parts of the world.
