Self-payment
There can be various reasons for choosing to pay for psychotherapy yourself. In case of self-payment, insurance application formalities are not a concern. The billing is based on the scale of fees for psychotherapists in Germany (GOP).
Self-paying for psychotherapy may be preferable if you wish for a straightforward start without application delays and coordination with the health insurance company, if the insurance shall not get involved in administrative info on the therapy, if your insurance contract doesn’t cover psychotherapy at all or does not cover it in private practices. Please note that I do not proceed differently in therapy, no matter whether you pay for it or an insurance covers the costs.
Private Health Insurance and/or Supplementary Health Insurance (Beihilfe)
If you are insured privately and/or via Beihilfe (state employees/ civil servants) usually the expenses of psychotherapy in a private practice can get covered. However, since individual contracts can vary significantly, I recommend checking with your private health insurance and/or supplementary health insurance provider (Beihilfestelle) in advance to determine whether, to what extent, and under what conditions psychotherapeutic services are covered by your policy. Ideally, also inquire about any necessary application forms and request to get them sent to you already. If an application is required, we would usually fill it out and submit it together.
The billing is based on the scale of fees for psychotherapists in Germany (GOP) as well as the new joint billing recommendations of the Federal Medical Council, the Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists, the Association of Private Health Insurers, and the supplementary health insurance agencies of the federal and state governments (excluding Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein) effective from July 1, 2024, which can be viewed here. Please note that in some cases there may be a private co-payment.
Public (Statutory) Health Insurance
Unfortunately the costs of psychotherapy in private practices are NOT covered by the public health insurances.
In specific cases after individual application and approval via your insurance, the costs of psychotherapy in a private practice can get reimbursed through your public health insurance. This can only get approved if despite urgent need for therapy and extensive, documented search no slot with a public therapist could get found within a reasonable waiting time (proof of so-called “system failure”). As this requires considerable effort and time and there is no guarantee for success, patients looking for coverage of the costs via a public insurance should always start systematically looking for a public therapist first (including via Kassenärztliche Vereinigung, the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians: www.kvberlin.de).
