Berlin · Region 1 of 6 · Snapshot 26 August 2026
How hard is it to book a specialist online in Berlin?
We surveyed all 2,986 reachable specialist profiles across seven fields on Germany's largest booking platform, then measured real appointment availability at 359 bookable practices, queried separately for public and private insurance. Privately insured patients could book at 91 percent of those practices, with a median wait of six days. Publicly insured patients could book at 47 percent: the other 53 percent showed them no appointment at all within 98 days.
Finding 1
For most specialties, public patients often found nothing at all
For each sampled practice we looked up the next bookable first appointment, queried separately for public (GKV) and private (PKV) insurance, scanning up to 98 days ahead. The chart shows the share of practices per specialty where the public calendar returned nothing in that entire window.
Share of practices with no online GKV appointment within 98 days
Berlin, 26 August 2026 · availability sample, ~50 bookable practices per specialty
Data table
| Specialty | No GKV slot ≤ 98 days | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Cardiology | 40 of 50 | 80% |
| Dermatology | 45 of 59 | 76% |
| Psychotherapy | 28 of 50 | 56% |
| Gynaecology | 27 of 50 | 54% |
| Orthopaedics | 22 of 50 | 44% |
| Ophthalmology | 17 of 50 | 34% |
| ENT | 10 of 50 | 20% |
Finding 2
In two specialties, half the market does not treat public patients
The census layer covers every reachable profile, 2,986 in total. Where a profile declares its billing status, the share that treats private patients only varies enormously by field. In psychotherapy, the field with Germany's most notorious waiting lists, seven in ten declared practices are private-only.
Private-only share among practices with a declared billing status
Berlin census, 26 August 2026 · 1,650 of 2,986 profiles declare a status
Finding 3
The 53 percent without a public slot, decomposed
Among the 359 practices in the availability sample, the public-insurance gap has two distinct mechanisms, and they deserve to be read separately.
What 359 bookable Berlin practices offered publicly insured patients
Availability sample, 26 August 2026
These are not empty calendars: 166 of the 189 practices without a public slot showed an open, bookable private appointment at the same moment. Only 23 practices had nothing for either insurance type. Every practice in this sample runs active online booking; practices without it are counted separately in the census and never enter this figure.
Fairness requires the counterpoint: where practices run a single shared calendar for both insurance types, the majority of directly comparable cases, both patients see identical dates. The inequality sits in access, not in a universal two-tier waiting time: it appears where calendars are split, and above all in who gets a calendar at all.
Finding 4
Same practice, same appointment type, up to 112 days apart
Where a practice runs split calendars and published dates for both insurance types, the gap becomes directly measurable. The largest gap per specialty, each comparing the identical first-appointment type at the identical practice.
Days until the next bookable first appointment, by insurance type
Largest same-practice gap per specialty, Berlin, 26 August 2026
Finding 5
English-language care: available, unevenly
Across the full census, 38 percent of profiles list English as a consultation language. Orthopaedics leads; ophthalmology trails. In psychotherapy, where English-speaking care is a lifeline for internationals, availability is average, but seven in ten declared practices require private cover.
Share of profiles listing English as a consultation language
Berlin census, 26 August 2026 · all 2,986 reachable profiles
Conclusions
What these numbers mean, stated plainly
The conclusions below stay within what the data can support.
- Online direct booking in Berlin is largely a private-insurance channel. Privately insured patients could book at 91 percent of sampled practices; publicly insured patients at 47 percent. The convenience layer of German healthcare has a default insurance type, and it is private.
- The gap is configured, not coincidental. 166 of the 189 practices that showed public patients nothing had an open, bookable private appointment at the same moment, and one in five practices excludes public patients from the online first appointment outright. These are settings, chosen practice by practice.
- In psychotherapy, private cover is close to a precondition for online access. 69 percent of Berlin psychotherapists with a declared billing status treat private patients only, and among bookable practices, more than half showed public patients no first session at all.
- Public patients are not locked out of care, but out of convenience. The same referral-free appointment that a private patient books in minutes requires phone calls, a GP visit or the 116117 service for a public patient. This study measures that convenience gap, nothing more and nothing less.
- For English speakers, the two gaps compound. English-language care is findable (38 percent of profiles), but it is concentrated in exactly the fields and practices where private cover opens the door.
Method and limits
What this study measures, and what it does not
- Two layers. A census of all 2,986 reachable profiles (languages, declared billing status, online bookability), and an availability sample of 359 bookable practices, roughly 50 per specialty, drawn evenly across all result pages to avoid the platform's availability-based ranking bias.
- Platform and insurance categories. The platform surveyed is Doctolib, Germany's largest medical booking platform. The private query corresponds to the platform's own category for privately insured patients; self-paying patients use the same channel. Both queries per practice ran immediately one after the other on the snapshot day.
- Digital access only. Public patients can still obtain appointments by phone, via their GP, or through the 116117 appointment service, which guarantees an appointment within four weeks with a referral code. The finding is precisely that the direct digital channel open to private patients is largely closed to public patients.
- No referral is legally required for any of the seven specialties studied. The comparison concerns the identical referral-free first appointment for both insurance types. The platform encodes referral requirements in structured form; none of the sampled first-appointment types carried one.
- Snapshot, not a season. Practices release slots in waves. Where booking is enabled but no slot appeared, quota policy and genuine fullness cannot be fully separated from one day of data; the open private calendars at the same practices point to quota policy. The study repeats quarterly.
- Billing status is declared by 55 percent of profiles; private-only shares are reported against the declared base and labelled as such. English listing is the practice's own declaration.
- Where calendars are shared between insurance types, both patients see identical dates; single-calendar practices are counted as offering equal access. One ophthalmology practice excluded private patients from online first appointments, the reverse of the general pattern. It is counted and reported.
- Cross-platform robustness. A spot check of the twelve top-listed Berlin dermatology profiles on the second-largest platform (Jameda) showed the same booking logic: split insurance steps, the same private-heavy top ranks, and several identical practices. No indication of a different picture off the main platform.
Funding and conflict of interest. TheGoodBroker advises on private health insurance and may receive commission from an insurer when a policy is concluded. This study was not funded or influenced by any insurer. Method and aggregate results are published for independent review. The study measures booking availability; it makes no statement on whether private health insurance is the better choice for any individual.
Cite this study
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Licence: CC BY 4.0 (reuse with attribution and link).
The series
Six metropolitan regions, one method, one snapshot day
Each city is surveyed and published separately so that every result is citable on its own, in an English and a German edition with a city PDF in both languages. A combined report aggregates the six metropolitan regions.
Common questions
Do publicly insured patients need a referral to see these specialists?
No. Statutory patients in Germany may see dermatologists, orthopaedists, cardiologists, gynaecologists, ENT doctors, ophthalmologists and psychotherapists directly. A referral is only mandatory for fields such as radiology or laboratory medicine, none of which are part of this study. Practices may still ask for a referral as their own policy.
Does this mean public patients cannot get appointments at all?
No. The study measures the online direct-booking channel on one snapshot day. Phone, GP referral and the 116117 service remain open to public patients. What the data shows is that the convenient digital path that private patients use freely is largely unavailable to them.
Do private patients always wait less at the same practice?
No. Where a practice runs one shared calendar for both insurance types, both see identical dates, and that is the majority of directly comparable cases. The gap appears where calendars are split, and above all in access: 53 percent of sampled practices showed public patients no appointment at all, while 91 percent offered private patients one.
Deciding between public and private cover in Germany?
Independent, English-speaking advice. Free means all of it.
Book a free call →TheGoodBroker · Independent insurance broker (licensed under Sec. 34d German Trade Code). This study reports measured booking availability. It is not medical advice, not an assessment of treatment quality, and no statement about individual insurers or tariffs. Data collected from publicly accessible booking pages; no personal data was gathered; practice names are withheld.
