In short and in plain language
The government plans a care reform. So far it is only a draft. It can still change.
This post shows how to prepare your advice pages for it. These are pages with tips for families.
Keep the current law apart from the draft. Show the draft in its own box. A date shows how up to date the page is.
Families should see that something may change. They should not think it applies yet. Rebuild old pages later instead of deleting them.
We look after your advice pages as part of website upkeep.
On 30 September 2026 (Federal Ministry of Health) the German federal cabinet adopted the draft of the Long-Term Care Reorganisation Act, known as PNOG. For home care services that run advice pages, one sentence in it carries particular weight: instead of the current relief amount (Entlastungsbetrag), a community budget (Sozialraumbudget) is to be available from care level 2 (Federal Ministry of Health), and several home care benefits are to be bundled into budgets. None of this is law yet. The Bundesrat and the Bundestag have still to deliberate, and amounts and dates may change along the way. Anyone running advice pages on the relief amount, respite care or care allowance therefore has a double task: relatives should learn that a change is planned without getting the impression that it already applies. This article shows how to steer your pages through the legislative process: with a last-updated date, clearly separated layers and a switch-over plan up to the effective date.
Key takeaways
- The federal cabinet adopted the draft Long-Term Care Reorganisation Act on 30 September 2026 (Federal Ministry of Health). It becomes law only after the Bundesrat, the Bundestag and promulgation in the Federal Law Gazette.
- Today the relief amount of up to €131 a month applies (Section 45b SGB XI). The draft provides a community budget from care level 2 of up to €175, and up to €300 for people under 25 (PNOG cabinet draft).
- Every affected advice page separates two layers: main text and worked example follow current law, while a labelled box describes the draft with its version and date. Headings, meta description and FAQ answers stay free of draft figures.
- A visible date labelled “Last updated” and the same value in dateModified make the status verifiable. Reform dates belong in the running text, not in the page date.
- The Bundesrat may comment within six weeks (Art. 76(2) Basic Law). Each stage of the procedure is a review date for the notice boxes; the main text is switched over on the effective date.
- Searched terms stay: pages on the relief amount are rebuilt on the effective date rather than deleted, and a 301 redirect only follows later. The draft also uses the word Entlastungsbudget for a different benefit.
What the cabinet decided and what is still open
The Federal Ministry of Health headed its announcement simply “Cabinet adopts Long-Term Care Reorganisation Act”. In substance the draft follows two lines: the finances of statutory long-term care insurance are to be stabilised, and benefit law is to become easier to follow. For care at home this mainly means that benefits which have been separate so far are to be bundled. According to the ministry, this bundling makes it possible to raise care allowance and entitlements to benefits in kind in care levels 2 to 5 (Federal Ministry of Health). For low-threshold support in everyday life, a community budget is to replace the relief amount. For people in need of care up to the age of 25, the press release names up to €300 a month, which is up to €3,600 a year (Federal Ministry of Health).
The road to this point is openly documented. The ministry’s procedure page lists the ministerial draft with the date 5 June 2026 (Federal Ministry of Health) and the cabinet version with 30 September 2026, both as PDF files, along with the associations’ comments on the ministerial draft. For anyone editing an advice page, the cabinet version is the point of reference, because it is the version now entering the parliamentary procedure. If you drafted texts over the summer based on the ministerial draft, compare them with the cabinet version before any of it goes online.
The press release gives firm dates only for some parts, mainly on the financing side. From 1 January 2027 the contribution surcharge for childless members of statutory long-term care insurance is to rise to 0.9 percent (Federal Ministry of Health). From 1 January 2028 a contribution surcharge for co-insured spouses or civil partners is to follow (Federal Ministry of Health). Acute short-term care places are planned from 2028 (Federal Ministry of Health), and an annual indexation of benefit amounts from 2029 (Federal Ministry of Health). For the community budget and the new benefit budgets, the press release gives no start date.
One date is in the bill itself. Under its Article 11, the act is to enter into force on 1 January 2027, subject to individual exceptions (PNOG cabinet draft). That is a planned date, not a fixed one. Whether it holds is decided in the parliamentary procedure, and until promulgation every amount in the draft can still change. On an advice page the date therefore belongs in the form “planned for 1 January 2027 according to the cabinet draft”, not in the form “from 2027 the rule is”.
Current law applies until the act takes effect
Which advice pages the draft affects
The pages most affected are those that explain cash benefits of long-term care insurance. On care websites they are often the entry point for relatives who search for a benefit first and for a provider second. The overview compares current law with what the cabinet version provides. It does not replace a review of the individual case, but it shows where your editors should look first.
| Advice page | In force today | Cabinet draft (version of 30 Sep 2026) | What belongs on the page now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relief amount | up to €131 a month, also in care level 1 (Section 45b SGB XI) | community budget from care level 2: up to €175, up to €300 under age 25 (PNOG cabinet draft) | Main text unchanged, notice box on the draft |
| Respite and short-term care | joint annual amount of up to €3,539 per calendar year (Section 42a SGB XI) | joint annual amount to be removed, Section 39 governs a new bridging budget (PNOG cabinet draft) | Worked example under current law, notice box |
| Care allowance | care allowance under Section 37 SGB XI | care allowance in the amount of a relief budget (PNOG cabinet draft) | Check how your own website uses the word Entlastungsbudget |
| Home care benefits in kind | benefits in kind from home care services under Section 36 SGB XI | home care assistance in the amount of a benefits-in-kind budget (PNOG cabinet draft) | The service description stays, notice box |
| Consumable care aids | up to €42 a month (Section 40 SGB XI) | no longer a separate benefit under Section 40, obtained via the relief budget (PNOG cabinet draft) | Notice box on the service page |
| Care level 1 | list of benefits including the relief amount (Section 28a SGB XI) | revised list of benefits without the relief amount (PNOG cabinet draft) | Notice exactly where the relief amount is explained today |
The relief amount is the clearest case. Today people in need of care at home are entitled to up to €131 a month (Section 45b SGB XI), and that includes care level 1, whose list of benefits names the relief amount explicitly (Section 28a SGB XI). The cabinet draft rewrites Section 45b: people in care levels 2 to 5 who are cared for at home are to receive a community budget of up to €175 a month if they have reached the age of 25, and up to €300 if not (PNOG cabinet draft). The revised list of benefits for care level 1 no longer contains the relief amount, and the explanatory memorandum names its removal as a consequential amendment (PNOG cabinet draft). In December 2023, a further 680,000 people in care level 1 were cared for at home without receiving services from care homes or home care services (Federal Statistical Office). For advice pages this means that the place where the relief amount for care level 1 is explained today needs the clearest notice, and at the same time the greatest restraint about transitional rules that only the promulgated act will settle.
Respite and short-term care are a similar case. Today the joint annual amount bundles both benefits with up to €3,539 per calendar year (Section 42a SGB XI). According to the explanatory memorandum, the rules on the joint annual amount are no longer needed and are to be deleted (PNOG cabinet draft). Section 39 is to govern a bridging budget in future, and benefits of the current respite care are to be available via the benefits-in-kind budget, the relief budget or the community budget (PNOG cabinet draft). According to the ministry, the bridging budget is also meant to be usable for emergency services in home care (Federal Ministry of Health). If you run a page on emergency cover or on care in a crisis, as described in the article Care website in a crisis, that page is another candidate for a notice box.
A page that seems to have nothing to do with budgets is affected too: the service page on consumable care aids. Today the long-term care fund covers up to €42 a month for them (Section 40 SGB XI). The draft takes these aids out of the entitlement under Section 40; according to the explanatory memorandum they are to be obtained via the care allowance within the new relief budget (PNOG cabinet draft). If you run a service page like the one in the article Consumable care aids: the page that opens the door, add the same notice box there as on the relief amount page.
One word, two meanings: Entlastungsbudget
Keeping three layers apart
An advice page during a legislative procedure has three layers that look alike at first glance but mean different things. The first is current law: it is in the statute, the long-term care fund decides on that basis, and relatives calculate with it. The second is the draft: it shows the direction, but it is an intention of the federal government, not an entitlement. The third is the promulgated act with its date of entry into force: only from that day does it change what relatives can apply for. The page has to show at all times which layer a sentence belongs to.
- “Applies”, “amounts to” and “are entitled to” are used only for current law.
- For the draft, use “is to”, “is planned” or “the cabinet draft provides”, each with the date of the version.
- Draft amounts do not appear in the heading, title, meta description, worked example or FAQ answer, because these parts are read out of context.
- Worked examples calculate exclusively with current law and carry their own last-updated date.
- No verdict on the reform: neither “cut” nor “improvement”, just a description of what the draft provides.
- Every notice box ends with the route to binding information: the long-term care fund or care counselling.
Sample notice box for the draft
The parts of a page that are read on their own are particularly sensitive. The meta description appears in search results without the surrounding text, FAQ answers are marked up as machine-readable through the FAQPage schema, and screen readers and answer engines take headings as the outline. A draft amount that stands there without a label is read as fact. That is why the draft belongs in exactly one block per page, the notice box, while all other parts stay with current law. How an advice page per benefit is structured is shown in the article on the advice page for applying for a care level.
The last-updated date on the section and in the source code
In the article on the relief budget 2026 we described the rule that every amount appears on the page with a last-updated date and a source. During a legislative procedure this becomes a twofold statement. The main text carries the date on which the page was last checked and changed. The notice box additionally names the version it refers to, in this case the cabinet version of 30 September 2026 (Federal Ministry of Health). If the draft changes in the Bundestag, the version in the box changes, not necessarily the main text.
For search engines there is an additional rule that is easily overlooked on advice pages. Google Search Central recommends placing the date prominently with a label such as “Last updated”, including it in the structured data as datePublished or dateModified, and keeping both values identical (Google Search Central). The guidance goes on: no date in the future, and as few other dates on the page as possible. For advice pages on the reform this is a real conflict of aims, because they inevitably mention several future dates. The solution: the page date appears once at the top with a clear label, and reform dates appear in the running text as content, not as a date line.
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Relief amount under Section 45b SGB XI",
"datePublished": "2026-07-22",
"dateModified": "2026-10-12"
}Change dateModified only when the content has actually changed, for example because the notice box was added or adjusted. A date that is reset on every page view says nothing about the status of the information and so loses its purpose. And the visible date shows the same day as the structured data, otherwise the page contradicts itself.
The legislative procedure in plain words
Relatives on the phone rarely ask about articles of the Basic Law, but they do ask: “Does this apply now?” A short, factual section on the procedure answers that question on the page before it is asked on the phone. It rests on a few provisions. Government bills go first to the Bundesrat, which may comment within six weeks (Art. 76(2) Basic Law). Federal laws are adopted by the Bundestag (Art. 77(1) Basic Law). After that, the Bundesrat has its turn again; among other routes, a law comes into being if the Bundesrat consents or does not lodge an objection (Art. 78 Basic Law). It is then signed by the Federal President and promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette (Art. 82(1) Basic Law), and as a rule it enters into force on the day it specifies itself (Art. 82(2) Basic Law).
- Cabinet decision (done): add notice boxes to all affected pages, naming the version and date.
- Bundesrat opinion: check the boxes, add the procedural status, change amounts only if the version changes.
- Bundestag vote: compare the adopted version with the draft details, switch the box to “adopted by the Bundestag”, prepare new pages as unpublished drafts.
- Second passage in the Bundesrat: note the outcome in the box, set the internal switch-over date.
- Promulgation in the Federal Law Gazette: take the date of entry into force from the promulgated text, switch the box to “applies from”, plan the switch-over for the effective date.
Between these stages the content can change. The Bundesrat comments, Bundestag committees deliberate, and amendments shift amounts or dates. That is why the notice box names the version it refers to, and why the main text is switched over only once the act has been promulgated and its entry into force is fixed. Switching earlier may mean switching twice, with incorrect information online in between.
The switch-over plan up to the effective date
The switch-over plan starts with an inventory, not with writing. On a care website, amounts from long-term care insurance rarely appear only on the advice page. They sit in service pages, FAQ blocks, worked examples and downloadable documents. Only the complete list shows how large the switch-over will be and who needs to be involved.
- Advice pages per benefit: relief amount, respite care, short-term care, care allowance, benefits in kind, care aids, care level 1
- Service pages of the provider, for example for support and everyday help, that refer to the relief amount
- FAQ blocks including FAQPage markup, also on the home page and contact page
- Cost calculators and cost examples, as described in the article on the care cost calculator
- PDF information sheets, downloadable flyers and notices
- Newsletter archive and posts in business profiles that mention amounts
- Internal phone guidelines, so that the office and the website give the same answer
| When | On the website | Responsible |
|---|---|---|
| Now, after the cabinet decision | Inventory, notice boxes on all affected pages, update the last-updated date | Website editors with the nursing manager |
| After the Bundesrat opinion | Check the boxes, add the procedural status | Website editors |
| After the Bundestag vote | Create new pages as unpublished drafts, prepare terms and worked examples | Website editors with the nursing manager |
| After promulgation | Take over the date of entry into force, switch boxes to “applies from”, plan redirects | Website editors and technical team |
| On the effective date | Switch the main texts, publish new pages, turn old pages into transition pages, check the sitemap | Technical team |
| In the weeks after | Collect questions, extend the FAQ, remove outdated notices | Website editors |
For the effective date a simple technique pays off: the new versions are prepared and unpublished in the system, so the switch-over is a matter of publishing rather than writing under time pressure. If the effective date falls at the turn of the year, as the draft provides, the final preparation also falls in the days around Christmas and New Year. If you set the steps in advance and assign them to one person, you switch over on the first working day rather than weeks later.
Not losing old terms and addresses
When the act enters into force, the old terms do not disappear from people’s minds. Relatives will search for the relief amount for a long time, and notices and leaflets from earlier years will keep naming it. A page deleted on the effective date leaves an error page exactly where someone is looking for help, and loses the visibility it has built up over years.
A rebuild with a clear division of roles works better. The existing address stays and becomes a transition page: in a few sentences it explains what has become of the relief amount, from when that applies and where the new benefit is described. The new benefit gets its own page with its own slug. Only when the old page no longer contributes anything is it redirected to the new address with a 301. Renaming an address without a redirect is the most expensive route: links from other sites, bookmarks and search results then lead nowhere.
Keep the address, rebuild the content
The same goes for cross-links within your own website. Service pages that link to the relief amount page today need new anchor text on the effective date. A website that describes the old law in one place and the new law in another gives search engines and answer engines contradictory information. How such systems pick up content from care services is described in the article on visibility in AI search.
What relatives are asking now
News that a reform is coming spreads quickly, what it means in detail far more slowly. At the end of 2017, nine out of ten informal carers surveyed said they knew that care reforms had been carried out in the preceding years (ZQP Foundation 2018). At the same time a third, 33 percent, felt only partly well informed about the entitlements of the person in need of care (ZQP Foundation 2018). The survey covered 922 people (ZQP Foundation 2018) aged 40 to 85 who privately care for someone with a care level at least once a week (ZQP Foundation 2018).
The scale is considerable. In December 2023, just under 5.7 million people in Germany were in need of long-term care (Federal Statistical Office), and 86 percent of them were cared for at home (Federal Statistical Office). Some of these families hear about the reform in the news and then check your website to see what it means for them. The page therefore anticipates the most common questions without promising more than the draft contains.
- “Does this apply already?” No. Current law applies until the act takes effect. The page names the stage of the procedure and the date of the version.
- “Will I get more or less?” No forecast for the individual case. The page describes the planned amounts in the box and refers to the long-term care fund and care counselling for personal circumstances.
- “Do I need to apply for anything now?” Not because of the draft, as it is not yet in force. What someone is entitled to today is applied for and billed under current law.
- “Can I keep billing through you?” The provider answers this question itself once the act has been promulgated and the billing routes are settled.
For everything beyond the page, it needs a short route to a conversation: a clickable phone number, a callback offer and a reference to independent care counselling. The provider answers what concerns it, such as which services it provides and how billing works today, and refers legal questions to the long-term care fund. How a website for home care services builds in such contact routes is shown on our page on the website for home care services.
Content care as a fixed part of website maintenance
A reform going through the legislative process is not a one-off text change but a series of small deadlines over months. Whether this works in-house depends less on knowledge than on responsibility: someone has to keep track of the stages of the procedure, update the boxes and switch over on the effective date. In our website maintenance this content care is part of the service, depending on the package within the monthly change allowance or charged per effort. We carry out the inventory, set up the notice box as a reusable component where the system allows it, keep the last-updated date and structured data in line, and set up transition pages and redirects for the effective date. The professional review of the statements stays with your nursing manager; we do not replace legal advice.
After that, the care continues. From 2029, according to the press release, an annual indexation of benefit amounts is to be introduced (Federal Ministry of Health). If it comes as planned, the amounts on advice pages will change every year at the turn of the year, and the last-updated date becomes an annual routine. What belongs to the technical side of maintenance is described in the article website maintenance for care services, and how a care website with an advice section is structured on our page on the care website. How to update service texts systematically after a change in the law is shown in the article on the Nursing Competence Act 2026.
Sources and legal texts
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