Today begins the 130. Doctors’ Day in Hanover, where members of the DGKL are also represented. On the occasion of this event, MedLabPortal spoke exclusively with DGKL CEO Jan Wolter – and learned why Nina Warken’s health reform could plunge the healthcare system into chaos.

MedLabPortal: Mr. Wolter, Nina Warken has chased her austerity package through the cabinet – 16.3 billion euros in savings, stable contributions. Is this now the big hit or just a lukewarm compromise that will ultimately hit the laboratories again?

Wolter: I am glad that you do not speak of “health reform”, but name the child after what it is: an austerity package. This is not about reforming the health care system – which is urgently needed. It is simply a matter of limiting spending to prevent a collapse. I therefore criticize the message behind it: “We have to save, we have to limit spending.” What we need to do is become more efficient.

MedLabPortal: They have called for a “total reset” of the health system – Warken is now providing a blunt savings list. Is that enough or is it just a German patchwork again?

Wolter: If someone has to climb a steep mountain and carries a lot of luggage with them, then of course it helps if I take a little burden off them. But it would make more sense to give him reasonable equipment or perhaps adapt the mountain route.

MedLabPortal: You are CEO of the DGKL and therefore we cannot avoid diagnoses and blood values. The Finance Commission wants evidence-based lab check-ups, we are thinking of the PSA test. Is this finally the quality offensive or rather the creeping death of innovative laboratory medicine?

Wolter: The funds of the statutory health insurance must be used efficiently. It is therefore right to cancel benefits that are not sufficiently medically justified. In this case, however, the statutory health insurance must also reimburse services whose benefits have been clearly proven and where medical guidelines require their use, keyword PSA test.

MedLabPortal: Prevention has always been your topic, for example with regard to the sugar tax. Warken, however, has only shown himself to be “very open” about the sugar tax. After your last podcast, in which you not only called for a sugar tax, Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil has finally relented. But where is the big prevention revolution in Warken’s reform?

Wolter: There is no such thing. I don’t have the impression that the federal government really takes the issue of prevention seriously.

MedLabPortal: Laboratory diagnostics is the cheapest and fastest way to avoid expensive incorrect treatments – is Minister Warken actually noticing this, or is savings being made at the wrong end again?

Wolter: To be honest, I can’t see a stringent concept in Warken’s works – or pottery. That’s the problem. It seems to me that there was only a desperate search for how to generate new income and cut expenses.

MedLabPortal: How much do you fear the next rush to the laboratories with the simultaneous need to save money? If you don’t get an appointment with a specialist, you could have your blood values determined…

Wolter: One problem in Germany is that people rely too much on the health care system or the care provided by the statutory health insurance and do not take care of themselves enough. More is probably invested in the car than in one’s own health.

MedLabPortal: Your professional society for laboratory medicine is a heavyweight nationwide and Europe-wide in topics such as digitalization, AI-supported diagnostics, personalized medicine – will all this be included in Warken’s 2026 package, or will it remain with the analog 90s healthcare system?

Wolter: The topic of digitization is no longer missing from any election program. And of course there is also talk of it in the BMG. But the question is what actions follow the words. If the potential of the ePA is used correctly, it would certainly be a milestone. But the possibilities go much further. If digitization is serious, then processes must also be rethought. But far too little is happening there.

MedLabPortal: Mr. Wolter, you are, in a way, the visionary chairman of the republic. What we want to say is that your ideas, from the Cybercent to the health tax or the total reset of the healthcare system, can change the country for the better. Would you get Nina Warken on the phone right now and say “Minister, your reform is not enough – here is the real plan”?

Wolter: Nina Warken has more than 1,000 employees. From what you can see in the press, they may not all be completely satisfied with their management, but nevertheless there are over 1,000 people who could work on reform plans, plus numerous subordinate authorities, with another more than 5,000 people. I don’t think there is a shortage of ideas there. What is missing is the political courage to implement them. So if I got Mrs. Warken on the phone, I couldn’t give her a ready-made plan. But I could give her a few ideas and I’m sure that the more than 6,000 people could incorporate these ideas into a finely crafted, detailed agenda.

MedLabPortal: The critics say: The reform burdens the insured in particular and endangers care. From a laboratory point of view – will 2026 be the year in which diagnostics will finally become a heroine, or rather a piggy bank?

Wolter: Diagnostics is the heroine for a long time! It saves several thousand lives in Germany every day. Worldwide, there are millions of people every day whose survival or severe course of the disease is significantly influenced by laboratory diagnostics. Neither James Bond nor Wonder Woman can do that. And we all know what happens when you save on superheroes. The world is sinking into chaos.

Read Also:

DGKL board member Jan Wolter calls for comprehensive health tax instead of pure sugar tax – MedLabPortal

Editor: X-Press Journalistenbüro GbR

Gender Notice. The personal designations used in this text always refer equally to female, male and diverse persons. Double/triple naming and gendered designations are used for better readability ected.