Germany

On February 25, 2025, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) presented an updated draft version (8.0) of its general methods. Interested parties can submit written comments until April 29, 2025.

Between late February 2024 and early March 2025, seven more health apps were introduced in the Directory of digital health applications (DiGAs) at the Federal Office for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) and thus became reimbursable. These apps can be prescribed by physicians and psychotherapists and will be reimbursed by health insurers. In total, 59 health apps are currently available in the DiGA Directory, and ten health apps were delisted from the Directory.

In late February 2025, the Innovation Committee at the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) published the decision recommending the transfer to standard care for the completed project in the peripheral vascular field. The project was dedicated to the integration and spatial analysis of regional, site-specific, and patient-specific factors to improve the quality of care in carotid artery revascularization.

On January 30, 2025, the Institute for the Hospital Remuneration System (InEK) published the list of requests for innovation funding (NUB) submitted by hospitals in 2024. The medical technologies of cardiovascular, endoscopy, extracorporeal, gastrointestinal, neuromodulation, peripheral vascular, and other technology groups obtained positive status 1.

On January 24, 2025, the Innovation Committee at the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) published the determined funding priorities for projects on new forms of care (for single-stage process – open topic and for two-stage process – nine topics).

On January 28, 2025, the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) provided updates on implementing the Hospital reform in Germany.

The Federal Ministry of Health summarized multiple changes in the healthcare system that will be introduced in 2025. The most important ones relate to the further steps in digitalizing healthcare and hospital reform.

On January 1, 2025, the revised EBM (German Uniform Evaluation Standard) catalog for the first quarter of 2025 came into force. The main changes introduced concern updates of the contents (services legends, preambles of several EBM subchapters), the introduction of new EBM codes related to dialysis services, CT coronary angiography, management of long COVID patients, different types of consultations and visits, and material costs flat rates related to shipping services.

On December 19, 2024, the Hybrid DRG reimbursement agreement for 2025 was published. It determines which interventions will be reimbursed via a hybrid DRG mechanism and the associated tariffs. The newly introduced DRGs mainly belong to the endoscopy, gastrointestinal, and men’s health fields.

In late November 2024, the Innovation Committee at the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) published the decisions recommending the transfer to standard care for two completed projects. The projects were dedicated to relieving the burden of emergency rooms and improving infection surveillance in nursing homes.

In late November – early December 2024, the application period for 2026 ICD-10-GM (German modification of ICD-10 diagnosis codes), OPS (procedure codes), and DRG changes was opened by the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) and the Institute for Hospital Remuneration Systems (INeK), respectively.

On November 21, 2024, the Innovation Committee at the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) announced that a total of fifty applications for Innovation Funding for the new forms of care in one- and two-stage procedures were accepted.