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4 months agoIt’s crazy! The doctor said they weren’t allowed to use email because fax was more secure. I explained that using e-fax wasn’t any more secure. I also reached out to a guy I know who works IT for a small village and the way he laid it out is that Germany doesn’t want to have to upgrade and train everyone on email, buy all the computers, go through the growing pains of new tech.
This sums up Germany in general… if it’s not broken then shut up, there’s nothing to fix. You can’t even go grocery shopping or wash your car on Sundays. The rest of the EU runs laps around Germany on tech and progressive life.
(Transplant from USA, I should note. It’s been a journey.)
While cheap healthcare here is nice, without private insurance (pricey) it can be months to get an appointment with a primary care doctor. I had to fire one doctor who just refused to make progress on treating my conditions or help in the aid of persistent pain. Many doc offices operate as patient mills, where you can wait up to 90 minutes past your appointment time to be seen for 5 minutes. Office gets the pay from insurance, and you need to return 3 months later with the same ailments. I was stuck in that system for a year before I found a new doc that would listen to me and take me on as a patient.
So, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It is a better setup than in the US, where insurance has ruined the industry, but unless you’re diligent about getting a good doctor to take you on, or pay for private insurance, It’s just a grind. A lot of chopping, but no chips are flying.
The system here is better, but the treatment you get in the US is ultimately more beneficial.
This has been my experience and perhaps not representative of the system as a whole.