German Practice Management FHIR Profiles (R4)
0.90.0 - STU1 Germany

German Practice Management FHIR Profiles (R4) - Local Development build (v0.90.0) built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) Build Tools. See the Directory of published versions

International Interoperability

International Interoperability

This page documents how de.cognovis.fhir.praxis concepts map to international FHIR standards. German ambulatory practice management has many domain-specific regulatory structures with no direct international equivalent. Where possible, this IG reuses standard R4 resources and patterns, making international alignment explicit.

Mapping Overview

Domain fhir-praxis-de Approach International Basis Notes
Queue Management Encounter extensions R5 Encounter.subjectStatus backport Partial mapping; queue position has no standard
RLV Budget Contract resource Loosely inspired by Da Vinci VBPR Fundamentally different concept
Honorarbescheid PaymentReconciliation + ClaimResponse X12 835 remittance advice concept German-specific: quarterly, KV corrections
GOÄ Private Billing Claim.item.factor + ChargeItemDefinition Native FHIR pricing Factor range 1.0–3.5 is DE-specific
Digital patient invoice gematik DiPagRechnung used directly FHIR R4 Invoice DiPag defines the German GOAE/GOAE-new/GOZ exchange contract and included-tax convention
PVS / Fremdabrechnung Coverage.billing-assignment + Claim.payee Native Claim.payee third-party biller pattern German-specific factoring semantics and coverage-scoped consent
AI Provenance Provenance with Device agent FHIR Provenance (R4) Extends with EU AI Act Art. 50 specifics
Zeitbudget ChargeItemDefinition extension No international equivalent German KBV regulatory concept
KV Benchmark Basic resource extensions No international equivalent German KV regulatory concept
Accounts Receivable Account extensions FHIR Account (R4) Dunning levels (Mahnstufe) are DE-specific
Condition Extensions Condition extensions FHIR Condition (R4) Dauerdiagnose has no direct equivalent
Therapeutic remedy (Heilmittel) PraxisTherapeuticRemedyDE on ServiceRequest FHIR ServiceRequest (R4) Remedy order (intent=order), distinct from referral; gevko eHLM alignment

Detailed Mapping

Queue Management (Warteraum)

International basis: FHIR R5 introduces Encounter.subjectStatus with values like arrived, triaged, and receiving-care to track patient flow. This IG backports that concept to R4 via extensions.

What we add:

  • ArrivalTimeExt — Precise arrival timestamp (R5 has the status but not a discrete timestamp)
  • EncounterCalledExt — Timestamp when the patient is called into the treatment room

No international standard exists for queue position or waiting room management beyond the R5 subject status concept. Our extensions fill this gap for German practice workflows.

RLV Budget (Regelleistungsvolumen)

International basis: The Da Vinci Value-Based Performance Reporting (VBPR) IG uses similar contract-based patterns for value-based care agreements. However, the German RLV is fundamentally different: it represents a capitation cap (Mengensteuerung) imposed by the KV on individual physicians, not a quality-based reporting framework.

What we model:

  • Contract resource for the budget allocation (RLV-Zuweisung)
  • Extensions for Fallwert, zugewiesenes Budget, Entbudgetierung
  • Separate QZV (qualifikationsgebundene Zusatzvolumina) tracking

No international equivalent exists for physician-level capitation budgets imposed by regional payer associations. This is a unique feature of the German KV system.

Honorarbescheid (Remittance)

International basis: The concept maps to the US X12 835 remittance advice — a payer's explanation of payment for submitted claims. FHIR models this with PaymentReconciliation (normative in R4) and ClaimResponse.

German specifics:

  • Quarterly batch processing — Unlike US real-time adjudication, German KV payments are reconciled per quarter
  • KV correction codes (CorrectionRuleCS) — Richtigstellungen with codes like UV (Volumenüberschreitung), PL (Plausibilitätsprüfung), WP (Wirtschaftlichkeitsprüfung) that have no international equivalent
  • BSNR-level aggregation — Payments are tied to the Betriebsstättennummer, not individual claims

GOÄ Private Billing (Gebührenordnung für Ärzte)

International basis: FHIR natively supports fee-schedule billing through:

  • Claim.item.factor for multipliers
  • ChargeItemDefinition.priceComponent for base pricing
  • Claim.item.unitPrice for calculated amounts

German specifics:

  • Factor range 1.0–3.5 — The GOÄ Steigerungsfaktor system is unique to Germany
  • Schwellenwert 2.3 — Factors above 2.3x require written justification (Begründungspflicht)
  • Höchstsatz 3.5 — Maximum factor, exceeding requires patient consent
  • Our GoaeRegelhoechstsatzFaktorExt extension on ChargeItemDefinition encodes the regulatory Regelhöchstsatz threshold

The multiplier pattern itself maps well to Claim.item.factor in international FHIR — only the specific regulatory rules around the factor values are DE-specific.

PVS / Fremdabrechnung (External Billing Service)

International basis: FHIR R4 already models a third-party biller through Claim.payee. The interoperable pattern is:

  • Claim.payee.type = other
  • Claim.payee.party -> Organization

This is sufficient for the generic "someone else receives payment" case and aligns well with US revenue-cycle-management and billing-service workflows.

What we add for Germany:

  • Coverage.billing-assignment extension — The routing decision lives on the selected Coverage, not on Patient or Encounter
  • PvsOrganizationTypeCS#pvs — Additional coding on Organization.type to mark the referenced organization as a PVS / billing service
  • Coverage-scoped consent pattern — Consent.provision.purpose = HPAYMT, Consent.provision.data.reference -> Coverage, Consent.provision.actor.reference -> Organization(PVS)

Why the extension is Coverage-scoped: A single patient can have multiple payer relationships at the same time (e.g. GKV, PKV Zusatzversicherung, Selbstzahler). Routing to a PVS is a property of the concrete coverage relationship, not a patient-wide default.

Runtime mapping: During claim generation, an adapter can inspect the selected Coverage. If billing-assignment is present, the referenced organization is mapped to Claim.payee.party and Claim.payee.type is set to other. If the extension is absent, the claim stays in the direct-pay/default flow.

AI Provenance (EU AI Act)

International basis: AI lineage uses the official HL7 AI Transparency Implementation Guide, pinned to hl7.fhir.uv.aitransparency#1.0.0-ballot. The bounded local compatibility profile targets the accepted FHIR resource and retains the official AI-Device target constraint. It uses an explicit ai-model agent role because the deployed validator cannot classify the ballot's required nested Reference-profile slice. It has a distinct canonical, does not shadow the official profile, and is removed under the conditions on the AI Provenance page. Application proposal state before acceptance remains outside FHIR; ordinary non-AI audit events use base FHIR R4 Provenance.

Zeitbudget (KBV Prüfzeit)

No international equivalent. The KBV Prüfzeit is a German regulatory concept where each EBM billing code has an assigned time in minutes. The sum of Prüfzeiten per physician per quarter must not exceed a plausibility threshold.

Our ZeitbudgetMaxMinutenExt and ZeitbudgetAbrechnungskreiseExt model this on ChargeItemDefinition. There is no international FHIR concept for regulatory time budgets tied to billing codes.

KV Benchmark (Fachgruppen-Durchschnittswerte)

No international equivalent. KV benchmark data provides average billing volumes, case counts, and reimbursement rates by medical specialty group (Fachgruppe) and KV region. This data is published quarterly by each KV and used for internal practice controlling.

We model this on the Basic resource since there is no natural FHIR resource for statistical benchmark data. The closest international concept would be quality measure reporting (e.g., US HEDIS), but the German KV benchmark is purely financial/volume-based, not quality-based.

Accounts Receivable (Offene Posten)

International basis: The FHIR Account resource is internationally defined and covers patient accounts, billing accounts, and financial tracking.

German specifics:

  • Mahnstufe (dunning level 0–3) — Structured escalation process for overdue invoices
  • Mahnsperre — Ability to block dunning for specific accounts
  • Mahngebühr — Dunning fees per level

The dunning workflow is not unique to Germany but the specific Mahnstufen structure and associated fees follow German commercial law (BGB/HGB) conventions.

Condition Extensions (Diagnosen)

Dauerdiagnose (permanent diagnosis): A German concept marking a diagnosis as permanently relevant across quarters. FHIR Condition.clinicalStatus = active is similar but not identical — a Dauerdiagnose is specifically an administrative marker that ensures the diagnosis appears on every Abrechnungsschein without re-entry. The clinical status may change independently.

DiagnoseSeite (laterality): The custom DiagnoseSeiteExt was removed in v0.31.0 in favour of http://fhir.de/StructureDefinition/seitenlokalisation from de.basisprofil.r4. The DiagnoseSeiteCS / DiagnoseSeiteVS vocabulary assets are retained for mapping purposes and remain mappable to SNOMED CT laterality qualifiers (7771000 left, 24028007 right, 51440002 bilateral).

Therapeutic Remedy Prescription (Heilmittelverordnung)

International basis: FHIR R4 ServiceRequest with intent = order is the natural resource for ordering a course of care or therapy. International IGs (e.g. US Da Vinci) use ServiceRequest for referrals and orders; there is no separate "prescription" resource for non-medication therapies.

What we model:

  • PraxisTherapeuticRemedyDE — A remedy order for statutory therapeutic remedies (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech/swallowing therapy, podiatry, nutritional therapy) under German form Muster 13
  • Explicit category discriminator so remedy orders are not confused with PraxisReferralDE (reusable incoming or outgoing referral) or laboratory/imaging ServiceRequest profiles
  • Terminology bindings to gevko eHeilmittelverordnung ValueSets (EVO_VS_HLM_*) and KBV Heilmittel-Diagnosegruppe

Distinction from referral: A referral (PraxisReferralDE) transfers care responsibility or requests another clinician's opinion. A therapeutic remedy order authorizes a defined course of remedy treatments for the patient — same ServiceRequest resource type, different clinical and regulatory semantics. Do not nest remedy orders under referral profiles.