Company health insurance funds: Insured people want help and digital services

According to this year's customer report from the company health insurance funds (BKK) and the Siemens company health insurance fund (SBK), 79% of those with statutory health insurance are satisfied with their health insurance provider. However, when it comes to care, the report indicates that many would like more guidance, lower barriers to accessing specialists, and a more active role for the health insurance funds.

There is a particular problem with specialist appointments: Only 12 percent of respondents said they had no problem getting an appointment. 68 percent find access difficult. The situation is better for GP care – 53% report good experiences here. According to the SBK, which presented the report, the majority of insured people would like the health insurance companies to actively support them in navigating the healthcare system. Specifically, 70 percent of respondents see health insurance companies not only as “financial administrators” but would rather have a guiding function.

Digital applications are also increasingly expected. Although the e-prescription has arrived, only 17% currently use the electronic patient file, and 8% do not want to use it in the future. Digital health applications or symptom checkers have hardly been used to date. Around 10 percent of respondents have used these services. Telemedicine services such as video consultations are known to 58% of insured people, but only 14% have actually used them to date.

In the area of care, the 100-page report (PDF) shows that 16% of respondents care for relatives at home, some without a care degree (6%). This fact is often underestimated. According to the report, around half of those surveyed feel that they are sufficiently informed about the benefits provided by long-term care insurance.

More transparency required

At the presentation of the report, SBK board member Dr. Gertrud Demmler called for a transparency and feedback system for the entire healthcare system. The aim is an “urgently” needed quality orientation and an understanding of how the system is developing. The BKKs have been striving to create transparency for years. With the BKK-Echo, a telephone customer satisfaction survey from July to October, health insurance funds such as Bertelsmann BKK want to obtain more “honest feedback”. Demmler calls on politicians to ensure that transparency is the rule and that the “healthcare system is geared towards the interests of the insured and patients and not towards the interests of sectors or individual players.”

The customer report is based on a representative online survey of 5,000 people with statutory and private health insurance, which was carried out together with the Institut für angewandte Marketing- und Kommunikationsforschung GmbH.

(mack)