Guaranteed waiting times for scheduled appointments with specialists, expansion of counseling services and assistance to patients in need of medical care – all of this is included in the government program to optimize the healthcare system in Germany, which came into effect in 2016. In particular, patients will no longer have to wait too long for an appointment with orthopedists, urologists, or psychiatrists. An appointment with a specialist must take place no later than four weeks after the patient contacts a specially created service center.
It is still too early to say how the new rules will affect patient-doctor relationships in Germany. Currently, they are quite satisfied with each other, and the latter, especially highly qualified specialists, can also be satisfied with their level of income.
The medical profession is considered the highest-paying in Germany: on average, a doctor earns gross (i.e., before taxes, some insurance policies, etc.) 80,000 euros per year – twice as much as, for example, specialists without higher education. However, doctors complain about excessive workloads and the need to comply with numerous bureaucratic requirements.
Waiting weeks for an appointment with a doctor and languishing for hours in the waiting room, only to be subjected to a brief examination in a few seconds and receive incomprehensible medical terms as an explanation? Yes, even in prosperous Germany, one can hear horror stories about interactions with the healthcare system. But, as a survey commissioned by the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung / KBV) shows, overall, residents of Germany trust their doctors. 92 percent of respondents rated their relationship with their treating physician as 'good' or 'excellent.' And even the unpleasant long wait in the waiting room, according to the survey, turned out to be not as big a problem as one might think. Only one in ten respondents considers the wait in the doctor's waiting room 'too long.'
For comparison: Russians, according to a survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center in 2015, are increasingly less likely to go to a clinic and prefer to self-medicate. To the question 'What do you usually do when you get sick?', 46 percent of respondents said they go to a state-funded free clinic or hospital. According to a survey conducted exactly one year earlier, 55 percent of respondents did so. The proportion of those who prefer self-medication has increased significantly.
But let's return to Germany. According to the KBV survey, one in three residents of the country sees a specialist within an average of three days after deciding to make an appointment. However, one in ten study participants reported that they had to wait more than three weeks for an appointment. Experts explain this by the fact that in Germany, patients can see any doctor regardless of their place of residence, which means that some specialists with particularly good reputations have more patients and, consequently, longer waiting times for appointments.
According to another study, the unemployed visit doctors most frequently in Germany. Employed citizens, as the infas opinion research institute found, see a doctor an average of four times a year, while the unemployed do so more than ten times. The average German student makes doctor appointments an average of 8-9 times a year, and a pensioner about seven times a year.
Holders of statutory health insurance policies are examined by doctors more often than clients of private health insurance companies. 'While public insurance companies serve everyone on a solidarity basis, private ones prefer healthy people,' said Florian Lanz from the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, which commissioned this survey, in an interview with the German newspaper Bild. Private health insurance companies naturally categorically deny this. Almost anyone can become their client, but their insurance policies are much more expensive. In short, they do not choose clients; clients choose them.
Germans take sick leave on average 12 days per year. The differences here are more geographical. Residents of the eastern federal states stay home due to illness more often than residents of the western part of the country. Topping the ranking is Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: each resident takes sick leave for 15.2 days per year. The least sick leave with a certificate is taken in Baden-Württemberg – an average of 10 days per year.