Medical tourists from Germany contribute significantly to the growth of medical services in some Eastern European countries. Our new study highlights the wishes, requirements and preferences of Germans considering medical treatments abroad.

Expensive German Health Care System

The German health system consists of a vast number of players, operating with different objectives and in differing legal frameworks: public health insurances, private health insurances, hospitals, rehab clinics, medical health centers, doctors, physiotherapists, pharmacies etc. And of course, there are also the patients themselves.

Over the last decades, the German health care system has become somewhat of a dinosaurier. Although most patients in Germany are generally satisfied with the system, some treatments have become extremely cost intensive. If not covered by the respective insurance, Germans also tend to look abroad for better deals. Naturally, Eastern Europe with its lower costs is one of the regions that benefits from medical tourists from Germany.

Insights into German Patients’ Perferences

In our study German Medical Tourists 2019, conducted in April 2019, we surveyed Germans in detail about their openness to travel abroad for rehab, dental surgery and cosmetic surgeries.

The study provides relevant insights into the motivation of German medical tourists, especially for clinics and hospitals in classical medical tourism destinations like Poland, Czech, Hungary, Turkey, etc. Also, rehabilitation clinics as well as dental clinics benefit from these insights.

Study Overview

  • Methodology: Online survey
  • Sample size: 1027 respondants
  • Survey period: January until April 2019

In the study, the wishes, requirements and preferences of German medical tourist are lined out, in terms of – for example – languages needs, infrastructure requirements, travel organisation needs, trusted certifications etc.

The results were categorized into diverse classical segments like gender, age, net income, type of insurance (public, private).

Clinics and medical centers often invest in the fulfillment of certain international standards in order to achieve comparability or a promise of quality in international competition. While good knowledge of standards and certificates on the insurance side can be assumed, we investigated in detail the knowledge of German patients of these international standards.

The three parts of the Globis study “Medical Services in Germany and Abroad 2019”, can be purchased separately.