Re:Most hospitals aren't complying with price transparency rule
by f6v on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @12:23PM
(#27517684)
That’s all correct. The point is it’s incredibly hard to get to the specialist at times. I was trying to get an appointment in Belgium, they could only offer April 2022.
Re:Most hospitals aren't complying with price transparency rule
by petschge on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @12:24PM
(#27517692)
Same is true in the US.
Re:Most hospitals aren't complying with price transparency rule
by TillE on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @02:48PM
(#27519786)
In Germany, in the vast majority of cases, you can simply go to any doctor's practice (including specialists, no referral required) during office hours and see the doctor the same day, if it's urgent. They'll squeeze you in.
For non-urgent appointments, yes, the wait time for specialists can sometimes be months.
you may struggle/it may take long to find certain things to get a diagnosis, but once you do, it's a ball that gets rolling insanely fast.
2 anecdotal examples:
colleague's young child was fainting, took them quite a while to get through the right set of doctors/specialists to find out it was a brain tumor - after that was found though, they were scheduled for surgery the next morning. Operation successful, child okay.
I had an appendectomy in the middle of covid: went to the ER unannounced at 7 p.m. - was on the table at 1 a.m. - i paid 50 euros (10 for each day i spent there (they kept me for 3-4 days "just in case")). This was quoted to me up front (the rate, but not the number of days) and i signed a document stating i understood that charge before i was in surgery.