Diederik Schrijvershof successfully represented the Association of Practising General Practitioners (Vereniging Praktijkhoudende Huisartsen, VPH) and the National Association of General Practitioners (Landelijke Huisartsen Vereniging, LHV) in their appeal procedure at the Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal (College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven, CBb) against the tariff decisions concerning general practitioner’s care 2015 and 2016 of the Dutch Healthcare Authority (Nederlandse Zorgautoriteit, NZa).
The CBb ruled that the NZa cannot require a general practitioner to have a contract with a health care insurance company for certain services when this infringes the freedom of choice of a doctor. This involves the deployment of mental healthcare assistants (POH-GGZ) by general practitioners and multidisciplinary care for certain chronic diseases (DM type 2, CVD, COPD, asthma). The CBb also does not accept that general practitioners automatically will not receive any fee when they do not fulfill their duty to organise care during evening, night or weekend hours. The CBb adjusts the NZa tariff decision 2016 on this point. The NZa is obliged to take new tariff decisions within six weeks in compliance with the ruling (in Dutch). Click here for the press release (in Dutch) of the CBb and click here for background information on the procedure (in Dutch).
