Statutory health insurance and private patients: The end of separate waiting

11.07.2011 09:58

Doctor rating portals are changing practice management

This - let's call it "changed basic attitude" - can be observed more and more frequently in doctor's offices: a statutory health insurance patient enters the practice, registers and is then asked to go to the waiting room. But instead of complying with the request, he insists on being allowed to go to “the other waiting room”. The reaction of the medical assistants is always the same: a mixture of horror, disbelief and anger at what they believe to be an inappropriate reaction. The mix of emotions then erupts in the statement: “That’s not possible!” But unfortunately the rejection doesn’t serve its purpose; the patient continues to insist on using what he sees as an alternative waiting option, usually with success. The medical assistants grudgingly let him have his way.
Practice teams will have to deal with this situation more frequently in the future. Until now, there has been an unspoken consensus between practice employees and statutory health insurance patients that they spend the time until they see a doctor in their own waiting room, knowing full well that many practices also have a waiting room for private patients with a noticeable difference in comfort. But the basic attitude that accepts this differentiation is softening. Statutory health insurance patients are also becoming more demanding. Many of them have also taken advantage of IGeL and have thus become paying customers who receive increased support.
And last but not least, they have a completely new instrument to emphasize their demand for equal rights: the Internet rating portals for medical practices.
Practice owners with separate waiting rooms can only be recommended to rethink this concept. There is no objective reason that can be communicated to patients anyway, unless one openly admits that private patients require a different quality of care due to their status, which promotes the economic situation of the practice, an approach that falls more into the category of “courage to be embarrassed”. falls.
Practice owners who want to operate a positive review portal management system should give up the waiting room dualism or - if two waiting zones are required - divide them into coherent medical or organizational areas that can be communicated to patients. Because: whoever differentiates in the future will lose!