Long waiting times for a specialist appointment More and more frustration in the countryside

Accessibility of doctors: gap between city and country
It has long been known that patients have to wait for a specialist appointment for different lengths of time. For example, statutory insured persons usually have to adjust to longer waiting times in comparison to private patients. If you live in the countryside, you also have to accept longer journeys.

Long waiting times and long distances
Reports about long waiting times at specialist appointments have been making the rounds for years. Five weeks of waiting are not uncommon, as research showed. For private patients it is usually faster. Cash patients have to wait an average of 23 days longer, noted experts in Bavaria. People who live in the country have an additional disadvantage: they usually have significantly longer distances to a specialist.

There is still a gap between the city and the country when it comes to providing specialist medical practices. The incentives for an establishment in the area were obviously not successful enough. (Image: Marco2811 / fotolia.com)

Gap between city and country
Because with the supply of medical practices, there is still a gap between city and country. And this despite the fact that there has been more incentive for a branch in the area for over a year now.

According to a study commissioned by the statutory health insurance company Pronova-BKK, in the past year patients in cities with more than half a million inhabitants were on average less than 20 minutes to visit a specialist, the news agency dpa reports.

In communities with less than 5,000 inhabitants, they needed ten minutes more. According to the information, the average travel time to the nearest clinic in large cities lasted just under half an hour and in the country almost three quarters of an hour.

Appointments within four weeks
In recent years, there has been a constant search for ways to meet the shortage of doctors in rural areas. For example, the statutory health insurance funds had opted for a temporary admission for doctors.

Since the beginning of this year, the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians have been obliged by the Nutritional Supplements Act to set up so-called appointment service points, where cash-based patients should receive specialist appointments within four weeks. But according to patient advocates, this appointment service is not properly implemented by health insurance physicians.

Appointment service points have so far had little effect
The fact that the setting up of the appointment service points has not changed so far is also shown by the current "Healthcare 2016" study by Pronova-BKK. The health insurance states in a press release: "Nevertheless, the sufferers so far no improvement: 22 percent of Germans who were in the past year in a specialist medical treatment in treatment, had to wait a month or more for their last appointment. This proportion has not shrunk since the last five years. "

"Certainly it can be argued whether appointment service points are the optimal solution for those insured by law. After all, the facilities were able to help 10,000 people every month who urgently needed an appointment, "said Lutz Kaiser, CEO of Pronova-BKK. But waiting times for appointments are a general problem - not only for those who require specialist treatment "urgent".

Management of the defect
"Only better distributed in the area specialist medical practices can really solve the problem. Everything else is just a management of the shortage, "says Lutz Kaiser.

"Good medical care may not be a question of residence in the future," said Minister of Health Hermann Gröhe (CDU) years ago. "Especially in rural areas, more efforts are needed to maintain a good supply. Financial incentives are a building block here, but it is also important to improve working conditions so that more doctors are choosing the country doctor's job again. "(Ad)