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“Drive on sight” is often the motto in the pandemic when long-term strategies are missing or do not work.
This is exactly what Christoph Neumeier has to do right now, even though he doesn't want to.
Neumeier is the managing director of Covimedical, which operates around 60 corona test centers nationwide with more than 1,100 employees.
At the moment, operations at some locations are on the brink, the allocation of appointments has been partially stopped.
Neumeier cannot say when his employees will be able to fully resume work or when several test centers will soon have to close.
The company no longer lacks tests, they are finally sufficiently available - now the money is missing.
The new test strategy of the federal and state governments got off to a promising start.
In the past few weeks, thousands of new test centers have opened, and in Berlin alone citizens can now be tested for Sars-Cov-2 infection in almost 150 places.
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For months, the state crisis managers, especially Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU), had emphasized that the tests were an "important building block" for so-called opening steps and should therefore be significantly expanded.
Although more tests are being carried out than ever, the operation of the centers is economically rather uncertain - according to the owners, because the state takes a lot of time in paying.
"The bridging financing of the tests has not really been clarified to this day," complains Neumeier in an interview with WELT.
“We are at the end of the liquidity for the tests and cannot pre-finance any further material.” Like many other operators of the centers, the 30-year-old comes from the event industry.
Thousands of employees who lost their jobs in the pandemic have changed saddles in the past few months and are now working in test or vaccination centers.
Covimedical, headquartered in Dillenburg, Hesse, has already invested almost four million euros, says Neumeier.
He calls it "advance payments".
Loss of tens of thousands of euros if the billing is too late
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In view of the financial bottlenecks, the entrepreneur warns of a possible test stop and has made this clear in a letter to Health Minister Spahn, the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians in Hessen (KV) and the Hessian Ministry of Social Affairs.
The billing is actually clearly regulated: the testers receive twelve euros per smear, plus six euros for purchasing the material.
The only decisive question is when.
"The billing takes place monthly, for March the billing takes place and the data is passed on to the Federal Social Security Office (BAS) on April 8th," says KV in Hesse when asked.
The authority responsible for the reimbursement of costs specifies April 15 as the payment date.
That sounds like planning security for the operators, who previously lacked such clear announcements.
In the past week, the excitement was particularly great in Berlin: the billing could not take place until the end of May, according to the KV in the capital.
That would have meant the safe end for many privately operated test centers, complained the entrepreneurs.
There was talk of losses of tens of thousands of euros.
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This worst-case scenario apparently still looms in some regions;
there is a quarterly reimbursement in the room.
The operators then have to pre-finance their centers over several months until they can settle the costs.
The basic problem remains, says Neumeier.
He pays 20,000 euros a day for material at the Bonn location alone: "In the worst case, the pre-financing in the millions can no longer be lifted."
As is so often the case in pandemic policy, the private sector and bureaucracy come together in the construction and operation of the test centers - and the interaction is difficult.
In this case, companies like Covimedical bear the economic risk of the operation.
They are commissioned by the public health service and the federal states.
The test operators are also certified by the authorities.
The big anti-corona offensive with the “free citizen tests” is not supported purely by the private sector.
The tests are ultimately paid for by the federal government and thus by the taxpayer.
"Stopping the tests cannot be in the interests of the federal states and municipalities," says Neumeier.
So, as with vaccination and contact tracking of infected people, does an excessive bureaucracy endanger an essential component of the fight against pandemics?
In any case, Neumeier criticizes the often unclear responsibility: “Each federal state has its own regulation and different billing criteria.
In Saxony, for example, we don't have an office at all, so we had to look for a contact person first. "
"Assessment of an impending test stop is not shared"
Federalism is once again standing in the way of the attempt to create uniform conditions nationwide.
Conversely, the uniform rules do not always match the local situation.
Sometimes he has the impression that decisions are being made on some levels without obtaining the relevant expertise for the centers, says Neumeier.
“It's not about putting the blame on anyone, we want clear clarification as to how the tests can be reimbursed more simply and more easily.” This is the only way to increase capacity instead of forcing it down.
According to the Hessian Ministry of Social Affairs, there is not much that needs to be clarified: “Extensive information” on reimbursement was communicated shortly after the test regulation came into force at the beginning of March, according to the request.
“The assessment of the threat of a test stop being imminent in many places is not shared,” says a spokesman.
However, indications that there are short-term financing requirements would also be taken up at short notice.
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The Hessian KV assesses the situation in a similar way: The reimbursement is clearly regulated.
They are in talks with Covimedical and are working on a "quick solution".
In the opinion of the KV, however, whether the operation of the centers is generally at risk is a “political question” that the Federal Ministry of Health must answer.
But there they are taciturn: the ministry basically does not take a position on open letters or petitions, says a spokesman when asked.
The deadline for the following month is fixed: “The receipt of the statement must be made monthly.
The KV takes on the forwarding of the bill to the Federal Social Security Office and transfers the amount to the service provider after receipt of payment. "
Neumeier also relied on this announcement in his calculation.
Covimedical has carried out nearly 350,000 tests so far, around one percent of which were positive.
The entrepreneur expects a further increase in demand, although more and more tests for the home are to come onto the market.
It is quite possible that he is right, the newly stoked hope for more lay tests for self-application has so far only partially come true.
The response of the federal government to a parliamentary request from the FDP shows that there are also problems with this test variant: Many approval procedures for so-called lay tests have stalled, it says.
The manufacturers had submitted "inadequate documents", there was a lack of "necessary evaluations" and "sufficient study results".
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