DPtV and bvvp: Comprehensive analysis of the KBV numbers on psychotherapy

30.03.2023 17:08

Psychotherapy is used appropriately: 77 percent of therapies for statutory health insurance patients are provided with a maximum of 24 sessions. This was the result of an analysis of billing data from the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV).

Ulrike Böker, board member of the Federal Association of Contract Psychotherapists (bvvp), and Gebhard Hentschel, federal chairman of the German Psychotherapists Association (DPtV), examined the pseudonymized data of 462,635 insured persons who received at least one service as part of the guideline psychotherapy in 2018. “The quotas are tailored to needs and are used responsibly by psychotherapists,” say the study authors.

Quotas are used as needed

“The result is clear: psychotherapists treat for as long as necessary. The specified quotas are not regularly exhausted. The previous study from 2014 showed similar results,” says Gebhard Hentschel. At 30 percent, a not insignificant part of the therapies are successfully completed within short-term therapy (KCT) 1 or in acute treatment.

Diagnoses show high disease burden

“At 49 percent, almost half of the patients have four or more confirmed diagnoses from the F chapter of the ICD-10 – mental and behavioral disorders. In 37 percent there are two or three diagnoses,” explains Ulrike Böker. “Comorbidity is the rule. The patients in outpatient psychotherapy are therefore not 'mild cases'.” The figures impressively refuted statements by Federal Health Minister Lauterbach that psychotherapists would prefer to treat “mild cases over a longer period of time”.

Patients rarely change psychotherapists

“74 percent of patients attend the psychotherapeutic consultation and the subsequent probationary sessions with the same psychotherapist, so they do not change,” says Federal Chairman Hentschel. “This means that in many cases there is continuity between the practitioner and the treatment from the start of the psychotherapeutic consultation. This expectation of our patients can very often be fulfilled.”