Last year I wrote about how my private health-insurance company was holding out providing us, its customers, with any form of physical healthcare card, ostensibly with the motivation to save us money because of the cost of developing such a cutting-edge system.
This all, of course, is a load of crap. First off, saving us any money is simply an unintended side effect (but a damn good selling point) of them instead wanting to maximize their profits. Secondly, and as I again wrote before, these same development costs didn’t seem to be at all important when the government made them provide their economy class, statutory health-insurance customers with essentially the same cards nor when they tore down and completely replaced their online system for submitting refund claims after it was in operation for all of a year and a half.
But, let’s skip ahead to this year, 2025, the year when the German healthcare system increasingly shakes off its paper shackles to increasingly, if grudgingly, embrace the digital age.
Among the monumental advances awaiting us was the introduction of personalized, national health-insurance numbers, something that my insurance company has stressed is absolutely crucial for registering any implants I might have or might need. (Because, you know, they couldn’t tie them to my existing personalized, national tax number or my personalized, national pension number.) I mean, they even used bold face in the letter when making this point so it’s gotta be important, right? Makes you wonder how they ever managed to keep track of all my implants way back in those ancient, analog days of just last year.
The really cynical part of the letter though was their non-bold face hyping of how important applying for this “unique digital identity” is so as to be able to use things like electronic prescriptions to their “greatest possible extent”. All this from the same company that in part justifies not giving us healthcare cards, which are essential to use things like electronic prescriptions to any possible extent, by proudly proclaiming just how well their trusted, paper-based system has and is continuing to function.
And then comes the kicker …
After being away in Croatia for a couple of weeks, I came home to a pair of letters from my insurance company. One informed me of my personalized health-insurance number together with the warning that I should keep it in a safe place. (One of these places, of course, could include being encoded on my non-existent healthcare card, something that is in fact the case for all those people fortunate enough to have one.) The other letter was a reminder about how I had not yet applied for this very same health-insurance number and how I would be missing out on all those digital advances as well as potentially delaying any unplanned implant operations. (Um, except possibly for breast implants, what other kind of implants do you normally plan on getting? I’m pretty sure my dad didn’t go out and purposely break his hip as part of some grand plan to get a new one. And even I would be surprised if some admin-type would withhold a much needed emergency implant, thereby keeping a person in severe pain, until all the necessary paperwork was filled out.) Unfortunately, however, this second, reminder letter was written at least a week after the first one, which, to boot, was only vaguely dated as “February 2025”.
Welcome to the bonehead correspondence of the day.
Otherwise, I think I have a good idea how my insurance company can save some money to offset those development costs for my healthcare card …
An addendum: nope, thought it over and the idea really is good, especially since it’s now coming on the end of June and they just sent me another letter reminding me to sign up for my national health-insurance number. Sigh …
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