Concern and courage

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Posted on 26/12/2019 in Current Affairs

In his blog of December 22nd, NVA member Willem Pinksterboer expresses his concern about the decreasing reimbursements for alternative care from supplementary insurances. This care is at risk of becoming increasingly less accessible for patients with a tight budget. Furthermore, this will only lead to higher overall healthcare costs.

Pinksterboer highlights the strengths of the alternative field and the areas that need to be addressed in the near future to turn the tide. The responses on his Facebook page indicate that more people are contemplating this subject and have an opinion about it.

Collaboration
He finds it important that we clearly and convincingly show the outside world, the health insurers, the government, and the regular healthcare sector what our value is and what our principles are. The beauty is that there is also increasing interest in a more systemic or holistic approach in regular healthcare. Moreover, the complementary field has important assets in hand with its high patient satisfaction and cost-effectiveness, he says.

Collaboration is important to provide a clear, less fragmented view of the alternative field. The KAB umbrella organization, of which the NVA is one of the founders, has been working towards this goal for years and is increasingly collaborating with the RBCZ, the umbrella organization mentioned by Willem in his blog. In October, RBCZ and KAB organized an interesting symposium on quality in complementary care. Unfortunately, the invited health insurers largely did not show up.

Quality
Important aspects for the NVA are, for decades, promoting quality and safety, ethical and professional conduct, encouraging high-quality education and further training, and complying with legislation related to working in healthcare, complaints procedure, privacy, and so on. In addition, we seek collaboration, both within our 'own' field and in mainstream healthcare.

But there is still work to be done. The arbitrariness of health insurers in excluding meaningful therapies, carried out by well-trained therapists and doctors, speaks volumes. That is why it is so important that thinkers and doers in our association are willing to speak out and roll up their sleeves, in the interest of our profession, but especially for the people who desperately need our care! So let's enter the new year with optimism!

Read the blog by Willem Pinksterboer.