Access to psychotherapy
Insured persons in the SHI system can access licensed psychotherapists without prior consultation with a doctor if they are mentally ill. Psychotherapists are also available to them in addition to doctors practising psychotherapy. Child and adolescent psychotherapists or future specialist psychotherapists for children and adolescents who have been trained or further trained according to the reformed training and further training regulations treat children and adolescents up to the age of 21.
With the introduction of psychotherapeutic consultation hours in 2017, a low-threshold access to outpatient psychotherapy was created. The consultation hours can be followed by acute treatment and so-called probationary sessions. These are discussions that serve to further clarify the diagnosis of the clinical picture, to establish further indications and to determine the suitability of the patient for a specific psychotherapy procedure. Additional psychotherapy sessions in the appropriate procedure are requested from the health insurance fund. The applications for this are usually made by the psychotherapists in consultation with their patients. If someone is already being treated by a psychotherapist, a consultation can also take place within the framework of a video consultation.
What is sociotherapy?
Outpatient sociotherapy is designed to enable people with severe mental illness to access medical or medically prescribed services on their own. Through motivational work and structured training measures, patients are helped to reduce psychosocial deficits and to accept and use the necessary services. In this way, unnecessary hospital stays are to be avoided.
In the case of sociotherapy, insured persons pay ten per cent of the daily costs, but a maximum of ten euros and a minimum of five euros. An individual session lasts up to 60 minutes, whereas a group session always lasts 90 minutes.
