Germany · Combined report, 6 metropolitan regions · 26 August 2026
Specialist appointments: 7 days private, 21 days public
We looked at around 14,400 specialist profiles across Germany's six largest metropolitan regions, on Doctolib, Germany's largest booking platform. At 2,082 practices we then compared directly what the same practice offered a publicly and a privately insured patient. Private patients could book at 85 percent of these practices and typically waited 7 days. Public patients could book at 48 percent and waited 21 days. The other 52 percent showed them no appointment at all for the next three months, and 83 percent of those practices had open private appointments at that very moment.
Finding 1
In every city, at least 4 in 10 practices had no online appointment for public patients
For every practice we checked the next available first appointment twice: once as a publicly insured patient, once as a privately insured one, looking up to 98 days ahead. The chart shows how many practices had nothing at all for public patients in that whole window: from 42 percent in Munich to 59 percent in Hamburg.
Share of practices with no online GKV appointment within 98 days, by region
Six metropolitan regions, 26 August 2026 · ~50 bookable practices per specialty
Finding 2
Public patients wait two to four times longer than private patients
Median days until the next bookable first appointment, counted only across practices where that insurance type could book at all. In Berlin public patients wait twice as long as private patients; in Frankfurt four times as long.
Median days until the next bookable first appointment, by insurance type and region
Six metropolitan regions, 26 August 2026 · medians across bookable practices
At single practices the gap is far larger than the medians: 265 against 27 days in Cologne, 195 against 34 in Munich, 187 against 23 in Frankfurt, 112 against 1 in Berlin, and one Dusseldorf cardiology practice whose platform-reported next public appointment lay 552 days out while private patients could come the next day.
Finding 3
Two reasons why so many practices show public patients no appointment
Across the 2,082 practices, the gap has two different causes, and they are worth keeping apart: some practices exclude public patients from the online first appointment completely, others have public booking switched on but release no slots.
What 2,082 bookable practices offered publicly insured patients
26 August 2026 · one practice with a failed public-insurance query omitted
These are not empty calendars: 901 of the 1,091 practices without a public slot showed an open, bookable private appointment at the same moment. Where a practice runs one shared calendar for both insurance types, both patients see the same dates. The inequality sits in access: it appears where calendars are split, and above all in who gets a calendar at all.
Finding 4
The gap is largest in dermatology, psychotherapy and cardiology
Adding the six metros together by specialty: in dermatology and psychotherapy, seven in ten bookable practices showed public patients nothing; in cardiology, two in three. ENT is the most open field at 24 percent.
Share of practices with no online GKV appointment within 98 days, by specialty
Six metropolitan regions pooled, 26 August 2026
Finding 5
Most psychotherapy practices treat private patients only
The full profile count shows why psychotherapy is special. Among practices that state a billing status, the private-only share runs from 61 percent in Frankfurt to 76 percent in Hamburg. No other field comes close in any city.
Psychotherapy: private-only share among declared practices, by region
Profile count, 26 August 2026
Finding 6
English-speaking doctors follow the same pattern
Between 37 and 54 percent of profiles list English as a consultation language, strongest in the Dusseldorf and Cologne regions. For internationals the two gaps add up: English-speaking care is concentrated in exactly the fields and practices where private insurance opens the door.
Share of profiles listing English as a consultation language, by region
Around 14,400 profiles, 26 August 2026
Conclusions
What these numbers mean, stated plainly
The conclusions below stay within what the data can support.
- Online direct booking in Germany's metros is largely a private-insurance channel. 85 percent of sampled practices were bookable for privately insured patients against 48 percent for publicly insured ones, and 83 percent of the practices that showed public patients nothing had an open private calendar at the same moment.
- The gap is configured, not coincidental. 17 percent of practices exclude public patients from the online first appointment outright; a further 30 percent have public booking switched on but released no slot in 98 days, and another 6 percent ran no insurance step and showed no public slot either. The exclusions are settings, chosen practice by practice; for the rest, one day of data cannot separate quota policy from genuine fullness.
- Where public patients get in, they wait three times as long. Median 21 days against 7, with city medians from 12 to 33 days and single-practice gaps of several hundred days.
- In psychotherapy, private cover is close to a precondition for online access. 61 to 76 percent of declared practices are private-only, and 71 percent of bookable practices showed public patients no first session.
- Public patients are not locked out of care, but out of convenience. Phone, GP referral and the 116117 service remain open. This study measures the convenience gap of the direct digital channel, nothing more and nothing less.
Method and limits
What this study measures, and what it does not
- Two layers per region. A census of around 14,400 reachable profiles across the six regions (languages, declared billing status, online bookability), and availability samples totalling 2,082 bookable practices, ~50 per specialty per region, drawn evenly across all result pages to avoid the platform's availability-based ranking bias.
- Scope. This report covers Germany's six largest metropolitan regions (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, the Dusseldorf region, the Cologne region; N=2,082, every specialty cell n≥23).
- 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.
- Snapshot, not a season. Practices release slots in waves; 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 self-declared (55 to 59 percent of profiles per metro); private-only shares are reported against the declared base. English listing is the practice's own declaration.
- Data quality. Medians count bookable practices only; waits beyond the 98-day scan come from the platform's own next-appointment field and are labelled platform figures. Three availability queries failed and are excluded where affected. In the Cologne file, a deterministic encoding correction of 81 rows is documented on the Cologne page. A Berlin spot check on the second-largest platform (Jameda) showed the same booking logic and no indication of a different picture off-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, in an English and a German edition, so that every result can be cited on its own. This combined report brings the six regions together.
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 a single 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: 52 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.
