Since the corona pandemic, video consultations with the doctor have been used more and more. Evaluations by Techniker Krankenkasse show: In 2019, insured persons only contacted a doctor via video 297 times in the second half of the year. In 2020, there were 361,000 online consultation hours in the same period, and in 2021 the number climbed to 580,000 video treatments.
“The pandemic has shown many people the benefits of video technology. It is now an integral part of everyday life. In addition to working appointments or talking to grandparents, video calls with doctors’ surgeries have now become a matter of course,” explains Dr. Jens Baas, CEO of Techniker Krankenkasse (TK). That the boom in video treatments is not just linked to a lockdown, is made clear by the constantly increasing numbers According to a current evaluation, the number of video treatments rose to 580,000 treatments in the first half of 2021.
Baas sees this as a positive development: “Patients save themselves long journeys and hours of sitting in the waiting room. This also reduces the risk of infection – for patients and for employees in medical practices.” Thanks to the additional digital form of treatment, doctors are more flexible in their work and can organize everyday practice more efficiently good treatment for sure.