Is it impossible to find a good doctor in all of Germany or is it just Berlin?

honestly this is a berlin thing way more than a germany thing. i moved from munich a few years back and the difference is stark. my old hausarzt there actually listened and would refer me to specialists without a fight. here i went through three hausärzte before i found one on graefestraße who doesn't rush me out the door.

for the GI issue, try calling the kassenärztliche vereinigung's hotline at 116117. they're supposed to help you find a slot within a few weeks. it's annoying but it worked for a friend who needed a rheumatologist. also check jameda and filter by "privat" if you have private insurance, or look for doctors with "terminvergabe" enabled.

i think the problem is partly that berlin has way more patients per doctor than other cities, so they're all overbooked and burnt out. it's not an excuse but it explains the vibe you're getting. if you're open to traveling, potsdam or even brandenburg an der havel have doctors with actual availability. i know someone who goes to a hausarzt in rathenow and swears by him.

having a kid makes this more urgent, i get it. maybe ask in local parent facebook groups too, they often know which kinderärzte are decent and might also know adult doctors.

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It is both but Berlin makes it worse. The city has a weird shortage of doctors accepting new patients, especially specialists, because so many practices are operating at full capacity with older doctors who can't find successors when they retire. You can check the KV Berlin website for their "Terminservicestelle" to get a guaranteed appointment within four weeks, but they will send you anywhere in the city and it might still be a 20 minute slot.

The gaslighting from Hausärzte is unfortunately common here. A lot of them treat you like a hypochondriac until you show up with visible symptoms or test results. Try looking for a "Hausarztpraxis mit hausärztlicher Internistenausbildung" instead of a general practitioner, they tend to take things more seriously. There is one near Hermannplatz that is run by two younger doctors who actually ask follow-up questions, but you have to call exactly at 8am to get through.

For the GI thing, if you have private insurance or are willing to pay out of pocket, look for "Privatarzt" listings on jameda and filter by English speaking if that helps. Some of the private-only practices will squeeze you in within a week because they are not drowning in Kassenpatienten. It costs around 80-120 euros for a consult but you get actual time to talk.

Berlin healthcare is a mess, but it is not hopeless. You just have to treat finding a

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ngl this is more of a berlin thing. i lived in a smaller city near cologne before and could get a specialist appointment in like 2 weeks. berlin's just insane with demand. maybe try calling praxen outside the ring, like in lichtenberg or marzahn, they tend to have more slots cause people dont wanna travel there. also for the hausarzt thing, look for one that's part of a "medizinisches versorgungszentrum" (MVZ), theyre usually bigger and less likely to brush you off.

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j jeanettefi… · 5mo

The MVZ point is solid, the bigger ones on Frankfurter Allee take new patients far more often than solo practices. But Lichtenberg is patchy, I'd aim for the edges near Friedrichshain where the S-Bahn makes it a quick trip.

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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