Why waiting times are rising
In several places on this website you will come across the note that waiting times are long. There is a reason for this, and it does not lie with the individual practices: the framework conditions of outpatient psychotherapy are currently being fundamentally restructured. I consider it right to inform you about this — factually, with sources, and with the transparency you may expect from a practice.
What has changed
On 1 April 2026, the remuneration for psychotherapeutic consultation services was cut by 4.5 per cent. On 9 July 2026, the Landessozialgericht Berlin-Brandenburg (Higher Social Court) suspended this cut in expedited proceedings: its basis of calculation was “not valid”. One day later, the Bundestag passed the GKV-Beitragssatzstabilisierungsgesetz (statutory health insurance contribution rate stabilisation act). From 2027 onwards it returns psychotherapy to a capped budget and abolishes the statutory floor, in force since 1999, below which the fee for a therapy session must not fall.
“… so that the specialist groups are not burdened by any obligation to make back payments that may exist.”
The legislator’s justification for the abolition (translated from the official justification) · Ausschussdrucksache 21(14)97The justification is remarkably candid. A back payment was only ever a risk if the review found that too little had been paid so far. A protective rule is being abolished in the knowledge that it would have taken effect.
What this means for your care
For ongoing, approved treatments nothing changes; your entitlement to benefits from your health insurance fund remains in force. The consequences show themselves in access.
The direction is foreseeable: those who are privately insured or can pay for themselves will find a place more quickly. Those who have only statutory insurance — and that is most people — will wait longer, or in vain. Little is saved in the process: outpatient psychotherapy as a whole accounts for only a small fraction of health insurance expenditure, and a delayed outpatient treatment not infrequently ends in inpatient care, at many times the cost.
The admissions situation of this practice
I would like to be as transparent here as I would wish health policy to be. This practice is working at full capacity; I am unable to take on new patients at present and in the coming months. At the same time, I currently treat more statutorily insured patients than my half Versorgungsauftrag (the care mandate attached to a half Kassensitz, a statutory health insurance seat) requires — and, in all likelihood, more than the budget cap taking effect in 2027 will still remunerate. That is the mechanics of the new law: the treatments continue, they simply cease to be paid for beyond a certain number of hours.
For the time after that, this realistically means: under these conditions I will hardly be able to reopen places that become free to statutorily insured patients, but for the time being only to privately insured and self-paying patients. This is not a decision against those with statutory insurance. It is the arithmetic of a system that caps the number of paid statutory therapy hours while at the same time lamenting that waiting times are rising.
It is not the practice that draws the line. It is the system.
Why I am involved
I am involved in professional health policy to help keep outpatient psychotherapy within reach for people with statutory insurance — out of the conviction that it is basic healthcare provision, not a comfort service. A remuneration floor is invisible as long as it holds; you only notice it once it is gone. I would prefer that you never have to notice it.
If you wish to explore the background, you will find source-based analyses on Couch & Agora (in German):
- The fee cut for psychotherapists — a chronicle →
- The BStabG balance sheet — what the measures cost the average practice →
- The abolition of the remuneration floor — Amendment No. 15 →
As of 11 July 2026 — this page will be updated as relevant developments occur.