[Taking stock after 400 days--healthcare centres from a medical point of view].

At the beginning of 2004 the legislator introduced a new organisational form of ambulatory care into the German healthcare system, the so-called "Medizinische Versorgungszentrum" (MVZ; ambulatory healthcare centre). For the first time, hospitals are admitted to the sector of ambulatory healthcare (apart from the provision of emergency services). Naturally, this causes a great deal of conflict between the traditional health service providers (doctors in private practice) and their professional associations, looking at the new entities rather suspiciously since these can lay claim to a substantial portion of the budgeted reimbursement in this healthcare sector. Several hospitals have already gained first practical experiences with these novel ambulatory healthcare centres that cover both outpatient and inpatient services, which will partly be discussed in the present article.