Cologne · Snapshot August 2026
How hard is it to book a specialist online in Cologne?
We looked at all 3,016 specialist profiles in the wider Cologne region across seven fields on Doctolib, Germany's largest booking platform. At 350 practices we then compared directly what the same practice offered a publicly and a privately insured patient. Private patients could book at 85% of these practices and typically waited 7 days. Public patients could book at 42%. The other 58% showed them no appointment at all for the next three months.
Share of practices with a bookable online appointment
Median wait, where booking was possible
Finding 1
Dermatology is nearly closed to public patients online
In dermatology, 42 of 50 practices in the Cologne region showed public patients nothing. Among the 8 where booking worked, half the appointments were more than two months out; cardiology and psychotherapy follow at 37 of 50 each.
Practices with no online appointment for public patients
Cologne region · sample, 50 bookable practices per specialty
Data table (exact values)
| Share | Count | |
|---|---|---|
| Dermatology | 84% | 42 of 50 |
| Cardiology | 74% | 37 of 50 |
| Psychotherapy | 74% | 37 of 50 |
| Orthopaedics | 52% | 26 of 50 |
| Ophthalmology | 50% | 25 of 50 |
| Gynaecology | 42% | 21 of 50 |
| ENT | 28% | 14 of 50 |
Where public booking worked at all, the waits were the second-longest of the six cities: 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
7 in 10 surveyed psychotherapists treat private patients only
The full profile count covers every reachable profile, 3,016 in total. Where a profile states which insurance it accepts, psychotherapy stands far apart: 72% of practices that state whom they treat 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%).
Private-only share among practices who state on their profile whom they treat
Cologne profile count · 1,784 of 3,016 profiles declare a status
Data table (exact values)
| Share | Count | |
|---|---|---|
| Psychotherapy | 72% | 148 of 205 |
| Dermatology | 27% | 63 of 231 |
| Cardiology | 23% | 52 of 226 |
| Orthopaedics | 22% | 58 of 260 |
| Ophthalmology | 17% | 27 of 159 |
| ENT | 11% | 20 of 180 |
| Gynaecology | 9% | 48 of 523 |
Finding 3
58% without a public appointment: 20% exclude public patients, 38% release nothing
Among the 350 practices in the 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
Sample
- 148 · 42% · GKV appointments bookablemedian wait 27 days
- 69 · 20% · excluded from online bookingsame appointment type open to private patients
- 133 · 38% · no GKV appointments released103 with GKV enabled, 30 without an insurance step
Data table (exact values)
| Practices | Share | |
|---|---|---|
| GKV appointments bookable | 148 | 42% |
| excluded from online booking | 69 | 20% |
| no GKV appointments released | 133 | 38% |
168 of the 202 practices without a public appointment 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 six cities. Where both insurance types had a published date at the same practice (128 practices), 70 showed the same date; at 57 the private patient came first, at 1 the public patient.
Finding 4
Same practice, same appointment type, up to 238 days apart
Where both insurance types had a published date at the same practice, 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 to the next first appointment at the same practice
Largest same-practice gap per specialty, Cologne region
Data table (exact values)
| Public (GKV) | Private (PKV) | |
|---|---|---|
| Cardiology | 265 days | 27 days |
| Ophthalmology | 222 days | 62 days |
| ENT | 182 days | 5 days |
| Gynaecology | 153 days | 34 days |
| Orthopaedics | 106 days | 5 days |
Finding 5
English-speaking doctors: every second profile
Across the full profile count, 51% of profiles list English as a consultation language. Orthopaedics, cardiology and gynaecology lead. Psychotherapy trails at 35%, and it is also the field where private cover is closest to a precondition.
Share of profiles listing English as a consultation language
Cologne profile count · all 3,016 reachable profiles
Data table (exact values)
| Share | Count | |
|---|---|---|
| Orthopaedics | 61% | 243 of 399 |
| Cardiology | 61% | 208 of 342 |
| Gynaecology | 57% | 441 of 772 |
| ENT | 53% | 170 of 323 |
| Dermatology | 47% | 226 of 481 |
| Ophthalmology | 40% | 162 of 409 |
| Psychotherapy | 35% | 101 of 290 |
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 regions, behind Hamburg. 58% of sampled practices showed publicly insured patients no appointment at all, while 85% offered private patients one, with a median wait of seven days.
- Dermatology and cardiology are nearly closed to public patients online. 84 and 74% 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% of practices exclude public patients from the online first appointment outright, and 83% of the practices that showed public patients nothing had an open private appointment at the same moment.
- In psychotherapy, private cover is close to a precondition for online access. 72% of profiles that state whom they treat treat private patients only, and 74% of bookable practices showed public patients no first session at all.
- For English speakers, the two gaps overlap by field. English-language care is common (51% of profiles); the fields where it is most common are also fields with few public appointments. Whether the same practices are private-only is a question for the next snapshot.
What this means for you
Does this apply to you?
In the Cologne region, 58% of the 350 sampled practices showed public patients no online appointment; private patients could book at 85%. Whether the private side is open to you depends on three things: how you are employed, what you earn, and your health when you join.
Employed, more than 77,400 euros gross a year
You may leave the public system. Your employer pays half of a private premium, up to 613.22 euros a month in 2026, the same amount it pays towards public insurance.
Self-employed or freelance
You can choose private cover at any income. You pay the full premium yourself, as you already pay the full public contribution today: around 21% of income, care insurance included.
Below 77,400 euros, or staying public
The private calendar is closed to you, the other doors are not. With a referral code, the 116117 appointment service must arrange a specialist appointment within four weeks; practices still book by phone, and none of the seven fields needs a referral.
What it costs in 2026
- Private
- 500 to 600 euros a month at 30, 650 to 750 euros at 40 and 850 to 950 euros at 45, in a very good tariff with a deductible of up to 600 euros, care insurance included. Employees get half paid by the employer.
- Public
- 21.1% of income with children, 21.7% without, care insurance included; at the contribution cap about 1,226 to 1,261 euros a month.
When we advise against switching
- From about 50 with a medical history
- From about 50 when your pension will be the state pension
- One earner with two or three children: free family cover exists only in the public system
- Self-employed with an income that swings strongly
The way back into the public system narrows with age and usually closes at 55.
Unsure what this means for your own health insurance?
A free 30-minute call. We check whether you can switch, what it would cost you, and whether it is worth it in your case. If it is not, we say so.
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 day. Phone and GP referral are open to everyone, and publicly insured patients can also use the appointment service 116117. 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?
Not always. At 128 Cologne-region practices both insurance types could book. At 70 the dates were identical, at 57 the private patient came first, at 1 the public patient, with single-practice gaps up to 238 days. The larger inequality is access: 58% of sampled practices showed public patients no appointment at all, while 85% offered private patients one.
Am I allowed to switch to private insurance?
Employees may leave the public system once their gross salary is above the Jahresarbeitsentgeltgrenze (JAEG), 77,400 euros a year in 2026. Self-employed people and freelancers can choose private cover at any income, civil servants generally. Everyone else stays in the public system. Being allowed in is the first step; insurers also ask about your health and can add a surcharge, exclude a condition or decline. Who can get private health insurance in Germany?
What does private insurance cost compared with public insurance?
Private premiums depend on your age and health when you join, not on your income. In 2026 a healthy applicant pays around 500 to 600 euros a month at 30, 650 to 750 euros at 40 and 850 to 950 euros at 45, in a very good tariff with a deductible of up to 600 euros, care insurance included; employers pay half of that, up to 613.22 euros a month. Public insurance takes 21.1% of gross income with children and 21.7% without, care insurance included, up to about 1,226 to 1,261 euros a month at the contribution cap. How much does health insurance cost in Germany?
Does private insurance mean better treatment?
Not by itself. Public and private patients see the same doctors and the same hospitals. This study measures one thing only: whether a practice shows an online appointment and how soon. It says nothing about the quality of treatment, and nothing about whether private cover is the right choice for any one person.
Is the consultation with TheGoodBroker really free?
Yes, all of it: the call, the comparison across the whole market, the application and every question in the years after. Brokers are paid by the insurer you eventually choose, and German insurers charge the same premium with or without a broker. If private cover is not the right fit, we say so. How the free consultation works
Read next
Related guides
- Who can get private health insurance in Germany? (2026)
- How much does health insurance cost in Germany?
- Is private health insurance worth it in Germany?
- Can I switch back from private to public health insurance?
- GKV calculator for 2026
- How to book a doctor in Germany as an expat
- Glossary: Jahresarbeitsentgeltgrenze (JAEG), the salary threshold
Reading aid
How to read the numbers
- Bookable practice
- A doctor's practice (in German: Praxis) with active online booking on Doctolib on the snapshot day. Practices without online booking are counted in the profile count and never enter the availability figures.
- First appointment
- The earliest appointment a new patient can book for the specialty's standard first visit, queried twice at the same practice: once as a publicly insured patient (GKV, the system that TK, AOK or Barmer belong to), once as a privately insured patient (PKV).
- 98-day window
- How far ahead we looked, about three months. "No appointment" means the calendar showed nothing bookable for that insurance type in the whole window. Waits beyond it come from the platform's own next-appointment field and are labelled as platform figures.
- Median wait
- The middle value: half of the bookable practices offered a sooner appointment, half a later one. Medians count only practices where that insurance type could book at all, so a short median can sit next to a large share of practices with no appointment.
- Accepted insurance (as stated on the profile)
- Whether the profile says which patients the practice treats: publicly and privately insured, or privately insured only. Behind it is how a practice bills. A practice with a public licence (in German: Kassenzulassung) bills the public insurers and treats both groups; a private practice (Privatpraxis) has no such licence and bills privately insured and self-paying patients directly. Only some profiles state this, and private-only shares are always reported against the profiles that do.
Method and limits
What this study measures, and what it does not
- Two layers. A profile count of 3,016 reachable profiles (languages, which insurance the profile says it accepts, online bookability), and an 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 day.
- Digital access only. Appointments by phone or via a GP referral are open to both insurance types. Publicly insured patients can also use the appointment service 116117 (Terminservicestelle), which arranges an appointment within four weeks with a referral code and is not available to private patients. 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 appointments carried one.
- Snapshot, not a season. Practices release appointments in waves. Where booking is enabled but no appointment appeared, closed public quotas and genuinely full calendars cannot be fully separated from one day of data; the open private calendars at the same practices point to closed quotas. The study repeats quarterly.
- Accepted insurance is stated by 59% of profiles; private-only shares are reported against the profiles that state it 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; practices where both insurance types could book are compared date against date (128 in the Cologne region: 70 identical, 57 earlier for private patients, 1 earlier for a public patient).
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.
Sources. [1] § 75 Abs. 1a SGB V: the appointment service 116117 must arrange a specialist appointment within four weeks for patients with a referral code. [2] § 76 SGB V: free choice of doctor in the public system. [3] Bundesmantelvertrag-Ärzte § 13 Abs. 4: the specialties that require a referral (laboratory medicine, radiology, nuclear medicine, pathology and others); none of the seven fields in this study is among them. Legal position as at September 2026.
Cite this study
Every figure on this page may be reused with attribution. Suggested citations:
Press enquiries: Jonas Marx, j.marx@thegoodbroker.de. Releases and material on the press page. Figures, charts and the CSV are free to reuse with attribution.
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (reuse with attribution and link).
The series
Six metropolitan regions, one method, one day
Each city is surveyed and published separately so that every result is citable on its own, in an English and a German edition so that every result can be cited on its own. A combined report aggregates the six metropolitan regions.
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.
