Combined report · 6 regions
Specialist appointments: 7 days private, 21 days public
Six metro regions, 2,082 practices: private patients could book a specialist online at 85% (median wait 7 days), public patients at 48% (median 21 days).
Research
Original research on who gets a specialist appointment online in Germany. On 26 August 2026 we counted around 14,400 specialist profiles on Doctolib across the six largest metropolitan regions and compared, at 2,082 practices, what the same practice offered a publicly and a privately insured patient. Every report exists in English and German, with anonymised data downloads. The study repeats quarterly.
Berlin
How hard is it to book a specialist online in Berlin?
One snapshot day, 2,986 Berlin specialist profiles: privately insured patients could book online at 91% of practices, publicly insured at 47%.
Hamburg
How hard is it to book a specialist online in Hamburg?
One snapshot day in Hamburg: 59% of specialist practices showed publicly insured patients no online appointment at all, the widest gap in the series.
Munich
How hard is it to book a specialist online in Munich?
One snapshot day in Munich: where both insurance types could book a specialist online, public patients waited a median of 21 days, private patients 8.
Frankfurt
How hard is it to book a specialist online in Frankfurt?
One snapshot day in Frankfurt: 55% of specialist practices showed publicly insured patients no online appointment at all; the median wait was 33 days.
Dusseldorf
How hard is it to book a specialist online in Dusseldorf?
One snapshot day in the Dusseldorf region: the best-digitised market of the series still showed publicly insured patients nothing at 48% of practices.
Cologne
How hard is it to book a specialist online in Cologne?
One snapshot day in the Cologne region: 58% of specialist practices showed publicly insured patients no online appointment within 98 days.
Method in brief
Two layers per region: a count of every listed specialist profile (languages, billing status, online bookability), and an availability sample of about 50 bookable practices per specialty, each asked for the next free first appointment twice, once as a publicly and once as a privately insured patient, looking up to 98 days ahead. Practice names are withheld and all results are aggregated. The full method, its limits and the conflict-of-interest note are on every report page; the anonymised CSV files are linked there as well.
Next snapshot: Q4 2026.
