Oberberg District agrees with health insurance companies on new emergency service fees Burdens for citizens should continue to be avoided.

Oberbergischer District. After intensive negotiations with statutory health insurance providers, the Oberbergischer District has reached an agreement on future emergency service fees. Subject to the pending decisions of the political committees, a new fee statute is to take effect retroactively from July 1, 2025. The goal is to continue ensuring direct billing of operations with health insurers, thereby avoiding fee notices for patients.

District Administrator Klaus Grootens explicitly welcomes the agreement reached: “We have managed to achieve a solution through negotiations. This ensures that citizens will not be personally burdened with costs after an emergency service operation. At the same time, we stabilize the fee budget and likely avoid additional burdens for municipalities through the district levy.”

The starting point of the negotiations was differing legal opinions between emergency service providers and health insurers regarding the billing of so-called “false alarms.” Health insurers argue that an emergency service operation must generally be associated with a hospital transport. The Oberbergischer District, as the provider of emergency services, points to the changing requirements of modern emergency medicine, where an increasing number of patients are treated medically on-site.

The Oberbergischer District also emphasizes the necessity of uniform and legally secure federal frameworks and sees the federal legislature in particular as being obligated to clearly regulate the financing of emergency medical services. Additionally, the district is counting on the state of North Rhine-Westphalia to reliably support municipal providers in fulfilling their statutory duties.

The district council had already adopted a new fee statute on June 12, 2025. Since the health insurers initially refused their consent, no billing could be carried out since July 1, 2025. This led to significant liquidity strains in the emergency service fee budget, which had to be temporarily offset by cash loans.

In recent months, the district administration, together with external consultants and lawyers, has comprehensively revised the fee calculation and conducted intensive discussions with cost bearers and stakeholders at the state level. Additionally, the district council unanimously passed a resolution in March 2026 calling for a clarification of the situation at the federal and state political levels.

Following the conclusion of the discussions, a fee calculation agreed upon by the district administration and health insurers is now available. The new fee rates are to apply for a period of three years.

District Administrator Grootens emphasizes the importance of the agreement for the future of emergency services: “The past months have shown how important joint solutions are for reliable emergency care. Our goal remains high-quality medical care in the Oberbergischer District while avoiding additional financial burdens for the population.”

The new fee statute will first be discussed in the Finance Committee and the Committee for Health and Emergency Preparedness. The final decision will be made by the district council in its meeting on May 28, 2026.