ÄAccording to a ruling by the Federal Social Court (BSG), doctors must be liable for improperly refrigerated vaccines in their doctor’s office and are not allowed to burden the health insurance companies with the costs for replacement vaccines. The reason given in the decision that has now been published was that the special refrigerator used for the vaccine is under the control of the doctor’s practice and is therefore the responsibility of the doctor. According to the federal judges from Kassel, it is up to his free entrepreneurial decision to what extent he takes precautions against a failure of the refrigerator, for example with technical checks or with taking out liability insurance.
In this specific case, it was a pediatric practice in Magdeburg. The doctors working there gave vaccines to patients for up to 12,000 euros every week. On a Monday in March 2014, the practice staff discovered that the refrigerator had failed to cool the vaccines over the weekend. A defective relay meant that the vaccines were supercooled at minus five degrees. A cooling temperature of plus four to eight degrees is normal.
Because of the faulty cooling, the vaccine became unusable and had to be destroyed. When the doctor’s office procured replacement vaccines and gave them to the insured, the health insurance companies demanded recourse for the incorrectly cooled vaccine, a total of 24,394 euros. The committees responsible for the profitability audit confirmed the requirement. On the other hand, the affected medical practice had sued (AZ: B 6 KA 14/21 R).
