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Comment by albert180 | Hacker News Reader

That's utter bullshit. Your quality of care in the hospital is exactly the same as with public health insurance. Also sometimes private insurance is even worse when it comes to addiction and psychological treatments

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You're treated the same in big hospitals but when I was in Berlin, private vs public meant I could get an appointment at a dermatologist tomorrow instead of in two months.

This is not true. Private insurance means better care in hospitals in Germany. Better access to appointments, choice of head/experienced doctors, even can mean better rooms.

No, it means you may potentially have all of those but there is no guarantee. Neither is there a guarantee that a publicly insured person wouldn't receive the same treatment. E.g. if there aren't any free "better/worse" rooms what are they supposed to do? Many of these are nowadays covered by employers as a benefit or for cheap (~5€) out of pocket if you want.

Private insurance matters most for specialists that don't (aren't allowed to) have (or want) a public insurance license.

You know, I'm a med student, so I have a bit more experience :) The Head/Experienced Doctor is still letting the Learning Doctor doing everything and pops in only for the visit. Also the "standard" Patients get also checked by a Oberarzt regularly. The difference is miniscule. The Rooms are sometimes nicer I agree, but the care you get is still 100% the same. The Hospital also doesn't get extra money for the treatment besides the Fee for the "Chefarzt" and the nicer room. Otherwise they'll only get the same DRG payout as for a "public patient"

Just open Doctolib and tell me it's the same when looking for any kind of doctor. The difference in waiting time is 3 months, bare minimum.

I just opened Doctolib and did a test with a dermatologist. The difference between private insurance was 23.5.2024 and public insurance 5.6.2024. That makes 13 days and not "3 months bare minimum".

https://0x0.st/HnBZ.png https://0x0.st/HnBN.png

Also if your primary doctor determines that you need an urgent appointment, they can give you a priority code, which gives you a quick appointment, since those visits are paid on top of the regular budget for the specialist

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