Cologne · Region 6 of 6 · Snapshot 26 August 2026
How hard is it to book a specialist online in Cologne?
We surveyed 3,016 reachable specialist profiles across seven fields on Germany's largest booking platform in the wider Cologne region, then measured real appointment availability at 350 bookable practices, queried separately for public and private insurance. Cologne has the second-widest access gap of the six metropolitan regions, behind only Hamburg: 58 percent of practices showed publicly insured patients no appointment at all within 98 days, while privately insured patients could book at 85 percent, with a median wait of seven days.
Finding 1
Dermatology is nearly closed to public patients online
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. In dermatology, 42 of 50 practices showed public patients nothing in that entire window; among the 8 where booking worked, half the appointments were more than two months out.
Share of practices with no online GKV appointment within 98 days
Cologne region, 26 August 2026 · availability sample, 50 bookable practices per specialty
Where public booking worked at all, the waits were the second-longest of the series: a public median of 27 days against 7 for private patients, with cardiology at a median of 79 days (13 of 50 practices bookable) and dermatology at 66.5 (8 of 50).
Finding 2
In psychotherapy, seven in ten declared practices are private-only
The census layer covers every reachable profile, 3,016 in total. Where a profile declares its billing status, psychotherapy stands far apart: 72 percent of declared practices treat private patients only, part of a pattern that holds in every city of this series (Berlin 69, Munich 62, Frankfurt 61, Dusseldorf 73, Cologne 72 percent).
Private-only share among practices with a declared billing status
Cologne census, 26 August 2026 · 1,784 of 3,016 profiles declare a status
Finding 3
The 58 percent without a public slot, decomposed
Among the 350 practices in the availability sample, the public-insurance gap has two distinct mechanisms, and they deserve to be read separately.
What 350 bookable Cologne practices offered publicly insured patients
Availability sample, 26 August 2026
168 of the 202 practices without a public slot showed an open, bookable private appointment at the same moment. One in five practices excludes public patients from the online first appointment outright, the joint-highest share of the series. Where both insurance types had a published date, 56 of the 128 directly comparable practices ran split calendars, and there the public median was 14 days longer.
Finding 4
Same practice, same appointment type, up to 238 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. One cardiology practice listed the next public appointment 265 days out while private patients could come after 27.
Days until the next bookable first appointment, by insurance type
Largest same-practice gap per specialty, Cologne region, 26 August 2026
Finding 5
English-language care: every second profile, with the usual tilt
Across the full census, 51 percent of profiles list English as a consultation language. Orthopaedics, cardiology and gynaecology lead. Psychotherapy trails at 35 percent, and it is also the field where private cover is closest to a precondition.
Share of profiles listing English as a consultation language
Cologne census, 26 August 2026 · all 3,016 reachable profiles
Conclusions
What these numbers mean, stated plainly
The conclusions below stay within what the data can support.
- Cologne has the second-widest access gap of the six metropolitan regions, behind Hamburg. 58 percent of sampled practices showed publicly insured patients no appointment at all, while 85 percent offered private patients one, with a median wait of seven days.
- Dermatology and cardiology are nearly closed to public patients online. 84 and 74 percent of bookable practices showed them nothing; where booking worked, the medians were 66.5 and 79 days against 15 and 6 for private patients.
- The gap is configured, not coincidental. 20 percent of practices exclude public patients from the online first appointment outright, and 83 percent of the practices that showed public patients nothing had an open private slot at the same moment.
- In psychotherapy, private cover is close to a precondition for online access. 72 percent of declared profiles treat private patients only, and 74 percent of bookable practices showed public patients no first session at all.
- For English speakers, the two gaps compound. English-language care is common (51 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 3,016 reachable profiles (languages, declared billing status, online bookability), and an availability sample of 350 bookable practices, 50 per specialty, drawn evenly across all result pages to avoid the platform's availability-based ranking bias. The platform's Cologne location includes surrounding towns; results describe the wider Cologne region.
- 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 59 percent of profiles; private-only shares are reported against the declared base and labelled as such. English listing is the practice's own declaration.
- Data note. In the Cologne file, an encoding slip affected how 81 rows recorded the insurance-configuration flag; because the collection code cannot produce the ambiguous combinations, the correction was deterministic and left no unresolved cases. Medians are counted across bookable practices only; waits beyond the 98-day scan come from the platform's own next-appointment field; shared calendars count as equal access.
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 in Cologne (72 of 128). Where calendars are split, the public median was 14 days longer, with single-practice gaps up to 238 days. The larger inequality is access: 58 percent of sampled practices showed public patients no appointment at all, while 85 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.
