Hospitals in Germany - opinions on their quality

We are deciding what kind of insurance to get, and we are probably getting the public one plus the "Zusatzt" so the extra insurance for certain things. We are definitely doing it fo teeth, but we are not sure about hospitals. How bad are they? Are the public room with many beds? Are there enough bathrooms? Do you need to wait a lot to have an operation? Do they treat you badly?

I say this because in England we had a great private insurance. I was once in a private hospital and I didn't like the experience at all, whereas my daughter was hospitalised urgently in a public structure and it was a good experience, even though the room was shabbier and there where no Molto Brown soaps in the bathroom...
So is it worth the money to go privately?

Sometimes going private here is cheaper than public. If you are over the threshold you should check.

Other than that, the public system here in Germany is lots better than that of the UK. I had to have an operation on my thumb when I tore some tendons, and I first went to the doctor on the Monday, who referred me to a specialist who saw me the next day and the operation was on Wednesday. It was in no way an urgent injury either. All my other experiences have been the same, never any waiting time.

Saying that, health insurance here is 10 times more in the UK, so it would want to me damn good.

I have private hospital insurance, and was glad for it when I had to have emergency surgery on my throat. I had a private room, a semi-private nurse (1 nurse for 2 patients) and the head of the department did the surgery, even though it was a holiday. In the course of my stay, I wandered down to the general surgery area, and saw 6 people in a room, nurses understaffed and generally a lot more rundown then the private ward. So I guess its a matter of how important it is to you to have a private room, etc. It was well worth my money to have the private insurance.

I know nothing about insurance honestly, but my husband tried to convince me to go to the non-private ward because he said our insurance would pay us €100/day if I did so, but I decided not to. I don't know if this applies to all private hospital insurance (I have Allianz.) So if it does apply to your (potential) insurance, then you might have some choices... i.e. if you had minor surgery and didn't mind sharing a room, then you might recoup some money...

I have public insurance and have been in hospital 5 times - 3 times for 5+ days. The care was very good and I suspect not all that much different than private insurance. My daughter, who was 7 and 8 months was hospitalized for pneumonia and croup.

While my daughter was in hospital, I was automatically given a bed next to hers and free meals. On her 2nd day, *I* became ill and was told to go to the ER on the adult side. It was a Friday night, and right away I was seen, vitals taken, bloodwork, an ultrasound done, an x-ray, another ultrasound by a specialist, and admitted overnight on IV. Now, it was no emergency - I had a bit of a temperature and low BP but in the end it was just a GI infection. That said, there are rare circumstances where those symptoms COULD have been serious but i know on public health care in other countries, I probably would have been sent home with 'stomach bug' listed as the diagnoses with no where near the tests (and speed) that I was delivered.

When I was in the hospital having my daughter, I stayed 6 days and was given everything I could have asked for - even back massages from the nurses. The HEAD OB delivered my baby. On postpartum, i got 6 weeks aftercare with a midwive, breastpump rental for 6 months.

When my daughter had pneumonia, we were sent home with a very expensive nebulizer machine - all covered by our public health care.

Suffice to say, in the 3 years I have lived in Germany, we have not once had to pay out of pocket expenses for anything medical - not one ultrasound, not one drug - not even the Kamillen bathing stuff for after giving birth.

I've stayed in 3 different hospitals here and all have been really clean, well-staffed and attentive. So I'm totally pro-public health care in Germany

Now the only thing with my daughter is that we did not have a private room at first. We had another baby and mother in our room and my daughter could not fall asleep with the noise. I was REALLY desperate to get her to settle down considering the night we had so i BEGGED the nurses for a private room. I even tried to bribe them. The next day, they arranged a private room for us (and no, they didn't take the bribe ), I'm not sure if it was because I was so desperate, or if it was the nature of my daughters illness and i'm also not sure if we would have had a private room anyways if we had private insurance as the doctor alluded something to that effect.

That said the 'non-private' rooms were never bad. I never had more than one other person in the room and never had any long waits for anything.

sorry so long - thats my experience anyways. Private health care here kind of scares me because if you ever need to come off of it, for whatever reason, you cannot sign up for public health care unless you have been free from the private system for one year. Don't ask me how that works, thats just what i was told and could even be wrong. But i have a friend who's german husband had private before they married (she's british) and it caused some problems with her getting public, etc.

It also depends on whether you have an "interesting" medical history, if you do private insurance can be very expensive if they are actually interested in insuring you.

Just because you have private medical insurance doesn't mean your cover will be any different to the state cover, it depends on what you are prepared to pay. I have private cover, but I'm not covered for a private room just a multi bed room. However a lot of hospitals don't have wards as such, they just have rooms that take 2 or 3 people. The only reason I'm private is because it's cheaper for me.