Overview
- A Forsa survey for Techniker Krankenkasse finds 56% of statutory insurees wait more than four weeks for a specialist appointment, with 35% reporting waits of several months.
- Regional polling in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland shows roughly half wait over a month, only about 5% secure appointments within days, and 29% struggle to find a suitable practice.
- TK urges a binding first assessment of medical needs and a unified digital appointment platform with reserved slots for statutory patients, noting 72% of respondents are open to digital triage tools.
- The insurer welcomes the federal government’s planned Primärversorgungssystem as a chance to coordinate patient flow, including gatekeeping via GPs or standardized digital or telephone first assessments.
- Health-system analysts and regional KVen cite the ambulatory–hospital split, solo-practice models and urban–rural gaps as core causes, and propose multidisciplinary centers and expanded advanced nursing or PA roles to ease bottlenecks.