Medical appointments Cash patients are disadvantaged

Physician appointments: Statutory insured persons are disadvantaged

06/06/2011

Statutory health insurance companies are clearly disadvantaged in the awarding of medical appointments. This resulted in a representative survey study commissioned by the Deutsche Betriebskrankenkassen.

Many health insurance patients have always suspected that when it comes to appointing medical appointments, those insured under the law are clearly disadvantaged compared to private patients. On average, GKV insured persons have to wait up to six days longer for a doctor's appointment than private insured persons. The only exception in medical care is the emergency room. At least here, people are treated equally in the prevailing health care system.

6 days less waiting for PKV insured
Cashiers will have to wait 20 days for a total of 20 days before they can consult a doctor, according to the study. If the respondents were insured in a private health insurance, the waiting period lasted only 14 days. The waiting time in the waiting room is lower for private patients, as for cash patients. While the latter had to wait almost half an hour (27 minutes), the waiting period for private individuals was only 21 minutes. These were the findings of a representative study by the Federal Association of Health Insurance BKK. The study interviewed a total of 6,000 women and men. Since 2008, the obvious disadvantage between legally and privately insured decreased only insignificantly. Accordingly, the laws already had to wait 21 days.

Emergencies are treated equally
However, anyone who is considered an acute emergency with pain or life-threatening complications, gets an appointment quickly, no matter what form of insurance he belongs. In two-thirds of the cases examined, a medical consultation took place on the same day.

A study by the University of Cologne had come up with something similar. Researchers tried to make an appointment for a series of examinations in 189 specialist practices in the Cologne, Bonn and Leverkusen area. The most serious were the differences in the specialist practices. On an allergy test private patients had to wait an average of 8.4 days. Was named on the phone that you have statutory health insurance, so took the average waiting time 26 days.

Many medical assistants circumvented the question of the type of insurance with the phrase whether you have already been in treatment. During the call, a comparison takes place on the computer. The practice employee can now see whether the caller is private or statutory insurance.

Private patients are more lucrative
The reason for the two-class medicine is the purely economic appointment of appointments. The treatment of a private insured is on average 20 to 45 percent more lucrative. In order not to lose the patient to a colleague, appointments are arranged as soon as possible. The patients also feel that. According to another poll by the opinion and market research institute GfK, 83 percent of Germans say that cashiers are treated less well than private insureds. That does not apply only to appointments. (Sb)

Also read:
PKV and doctors argue about fees
Numerous private health insurance plans to increase contributions for 2011
Separation of private health insurance and GKV a discontinued model?

Image: Gerd Altmann, Pixelio.de