If the federal government follows the proposed spending cut recommendations for general practitioners made by the expert committee, patients should prepare for significantly longer wait times to see a specialist. Andreas Gassen, head of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, warned that if the political proposals are implemented as is, waiting times could soon reach 50 days or more for a specialist appointment. This contrasts with government figures showing an average wait time of 42 days for insured patients in 2024, which was reported to be 33 days in 2019-the year the current reimbursement rules were introduced.
Gassen argued that owing to the existing cost ceiling, approximately 40 million specialist appointments are currently not reimbursed. Should the supplements that are provided through appointment service centers or family doctors be eliminated, practices would only be able to offer appointments that are fully paid for. He stated that “40 million fewer appointments means that roughly every eleventh appointment disappears. Patients will notice that within a few weeks alone”. He cautioned that it was unrealistic to expect physicians to continue working if nearly one billion euros in payments were removed instead of all services rendered.
Furthermore, Gassen refuted the arguments presented by the expert committee and the Federal Audit Office that the supplementary payment system has not benefited insured persons. He countered that specialists had substantially increased their appointment availability in recent years precisely because the supplementary payments made it financially worthwhile. The Bavarian physician added that “the perceived demand is actually not dwindling. We treat one new patient, and already the next one is waiting for a quick appointment. And everyone naturally believes their issue is urgent”. He concluded by saying, “It is impossible to meet this demand-or rather, this subjective need”.
Regarding the request from SPD faction leader Matthias Miersch for a three-week guarantee for appointments, Gassen dismissed it as “nonsense”. He insisted that appointment booking must be determined by genuine medical necessity, not by arbitrary deadlines set by politicians for electoral appeasement. Instead, Gassen called for a clear definition of what constitutes urgency, an assessment by the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians suggesting this would cover “a really very small percentage of all appointments”. For these patients, treatment is needed within hours or a matter of days. He noted, “The vast majority can medically wait several weeks or even months. If someone has back pain, they don’t need to be examined tomorrow if they’ve had the discomfort for three years”.
