Women use physiotherapeutic services more often than men

AOK Remedies Report: Women use physiotherapy more often

The Scientific Institute of the AOK (WidO) has published the Remedy Report 2017. According to this, around 4.5 million AOK insured persons received physiotherapy in 2016. A total of 13 million benefits were granted. The report shows that nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of physiotherapeutic homeopathic patients were female. The most common diagnosis in physiotherapeutic prescriptions was by far the nonspecific back pain. These were the cause of therapy in about one third (31.5 percent) of all physiotherapeutic patients.

The normal physiotherapy with a share of 46.7 percent accounted for almost half of all approved physiotherapy services in AOK patients. Only about 15 percent of all services were taken by manual therapies. Overall, significantly more women than men have used physiotherapy. 21.4 percent of female and only 13.4 percent of male AOK insured persons were receiving physiotherapy treatment. "Obviously, women have a longer life expectancy than men, but they assess their health status as subjectively worse, go to the doctor more often and also use physiotherapy more often, across all age groups," says Helmut Schröder, Deputy Managing Director of the WIdO.

For children under 14, the relationship is reversed

Children up to the age of 14 who used a remedy benefit showed a reverse sex ratio. Here, the proportion of boys was 60 percent before that of girls. Most remedial treatments were claimed by children at the age of six. Of these, 30.3 percent of the boys and 19.3 percent of the girls received treatment for a cure.

Back pain as leader

Patients with unspecific back pain in 2016 were the largest group of drug prescriptions. According to WidO, more than 1.4 million patients were affected. In most cases, these were short-term treatments with an average of 1.9 benefits per patient. In three quarters of the patients it was a single episode. Back pain, the most common diagnosis in physiotherapy, is related to outpatient care. According to the Remedies Report, a confirmed ICD diagnosis "M54 back pain" was documented in 2016 for 6.8 million AOK insured persons as part of outpatient contract medical care. The prevalence rate for this nonspecific diagnostic coding was 26.7 percent. Also in second place of the diagnostic ranking of all remedy prescriptions is a back diagnosis. "Other diseases of the spine and the spine" occupied second place with 7.8 percent, followed by "other spinal disc damage" with 5.2 percent.

General practitioners issue most recipes

General practitioners are still the main prescribers of physiotherapy services. Almost half of the patients received their prescription from the family doctor. According to the Remedies Report, this corresponds to almost 40 percent of all physiotherapy treatments. About one third of the patients were provided with physiotherapeutic services by an orthopedist.

Ergo and speech therapy

Although ergo- and speech therapy accounted for only 6.9% and 4.9% of the health insurance services provided by the statutory health insurance last year, the relatively expensive therapeutic funds still accounted for 14.7% and 10.7%, respectively, according to WidO. Occupational therapy accounted for 3.08 million remedies, with total sales of 968.7 million euros. In the field of speech therapy, there were 2.21 million services with a total turnover of 704 million euros. (Fp)