From October 9 to 11, 2023, 25 members of the FHP-SMR Board of Directors travelled to Berlin at the invitation of their BDPK counterpart. Organized with the support of the Union Européenne de l'Hospitalisation Privée (UEHP), the aim of this exchange was to share the challenges and opportunities facing the rehabilitation sector in France and Germany. Indeed, these two healthcare systems share many similarities, and in particular the fact that they offer medical rehabilitation care (Reha in German) provided by several hundred for-profit clinics.

German Rehabilitation and post-acute care clinics are guided by several fundamental principles:
- "Reha vor Rente": the explicit aim of rehabilitation medical care is to enable patients of working age to heal so that they can return to work (and not become retired).
- "Reha vor Pflege": medical rehabilitation care should enable patients to recover their abilities, so that they do not need long-term care or admission to a nursing home.

During three days of intensive visits, the delegation visited two rehabilitation clinics in the Berlin area: the Medical Park Group's Humboldtmühle clinic and the MediClin am Spreewald clinic. They also discovered the day care rehabilitation and post-acute care offer of the ZAR group, specialized in outpatient reha. The French managers received an extraordinary welcome from their German counterparts, who generously showed them around their organizations.

New technologies were not left out, as digital rehabilitation is highly developed in Germany. Every clinic and pension fund offers innovative solutions to support patients' recovery at home. A master class with the team from IBM's innovation lab in Berlin opened the door to the potential of generative artificial intelligence applied to the world of healthcare.

The members of the FHP-SMR Board of Directors came away inspired and invigorated by these particularly enriching bi-national exchanges.