Long waiting times: Cash registers require reporting for free therapy places

Due to long waiting times in psychotherapy, the statutory health insurance companies require a faster appointment to those affected. In this way, psychotherapists would have to be legally obliged to report free treatment capacities, the GKV Spitzenverband demands.

“We have no shortage of psychotherapy places. But we have a serious mentally ill person to find a therapy place,” said the deputy head of the association, Stefanie Stoff-Ahnis, the editorial network Germany (RND). The association’s board of directors has decided on this a position paper about which the RND had initially reported.

Association: Every fourth adult is mentally ill

In it, the association emphasizes the great need for help: “Mental illnesses have developed into a relevant health challenge in recent decades.” Every fourth adults are affected by a mental illness every year. Only a few would get a therapy place immediately.

For needs -based care, “a reasonable number of office hours and half of the treatment places by psychotherapists must be reported to the appointment services and only awarded by them,” writes the top association.

Appointments have not yet been met

In particular, seriously mentally ill people are “not to be expected to seek a therapy place alone without direct help and supportive orientation,” said Stoff-Ahnis. The appointments are already obliged by law to provide appointments for the psychotherapeutic consultation within four weeks. According to the top association, this is not achieved.

Here there is “clear need for action”, because in 2023 the placement rate for such appointments was 46 percent. This means that the appointment service points have not or not or not brokered more than half of the inquiries or not on time.

Patient protectors require the legal claim to suicide prevention

The German Foundation for Patient Protection also calls for faster offers for mentally ill people and refers to the number of suicides that has increased again in recent years. “It is feared that this tendency will continue. One reason is that appointments can hardly be obtained from psychotherapists,” said board member Eugen Brysch of the German Press Agency. “Obviously, the legal instruments are not sufficient to bindingly take the statutory association for the security order.”

Despite political debates on the subject of suicide and possible preventive measures, there is a lack of comprehensive protection. From the point of view of the patient advocates, this includes, for example, a legal claim to the prevention of suicide in statutory health insurance. “This includes short -term consultation hours, treatment places and excessive therapy.” Heavily ill people need “precisely accurate, quick offers,” said Brysch.