Video consultations – how digital are Germany’s doctors’ offices?
Video consultations are a prime example of digitalization in healthcare. But how digital are Germany’s doctors really? We at the Berlin School of Business and Innovation (BSBI) have delved into this question and examined the availability of video consultations in German doctors’ offices. The study analyzed doctors from 18 medical specialist areas in the 20 largest cities in the country. The data source was all doctors listed on the telemedicine platform Doctolib who offer online booking. The results show: While some specialist areas rely particularly heavily on digital services, there is still a lot of room for improvement in others – on average, 6.01% of doctors offer video consultations.
Internists offer the most digital consultations
When looking at the specialist areas, it is noticeable that internists are the pioneers of digital patient care. 15.54 percent of internists who offer appointments via Doctolib enable video consultations. General practitioners are also increasingly using digital services – the proportion here is 14.04 percent. Neurologists follow in third place with 12.94 percent.
In specialist areas where diagnoses are not possible without medical instruments, the range of video consultations is also the smallest. None of the 662 radiologists listed on Doctolib use this option. Likewise, only a small number of ophthalmologists (0.83 percent) offer digital consultations. While dentists are the medical specialists who most frequently offer online appointment booking via Doctolib, only 0.48 percent of dentists offer video consultations.
Nuremberg has the highest proportion of video consultations
In addition to the specialist areas, the 20 largest cities in Germany were also examined with regard to the availability of video consultations. This reveals a clear urban divide: the Franconian metropolis of Nuremberg leads the ranking with a share of 8.50 percent. Dresden follows in second place with 7.69 percent, closely followed by Bonn (7.66 percent).
At the lower end of the scale are cities such as Münster (3.09 percent), Bielefeld (2.30 percent) and Bremen with just 0.89 percent. The capital Berlin is in the lower third of the ranking with a share of 4.62 percent. Across Germany, an average of 6.01 percent of doctors offer video consultations.
The percentage difference between physicians who offer video consultations for private patients (6.01 percent) and those who treat patients with statutory insurance (5.87 percent) is small.
“Many people are critical of digitalization in healthcare, but as a computer scientist, I see telemedicine as a great opportunity for the overburdened healthcare system. In many situations, video consultations are a valuable addition that relieve the burden on both patients and doctors’ offices,” comments Dr. Farshad Badie, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science and Informatics at BSBI and an expert in Human-Centered informatics, information Science and Strategic AI. “Digital health services also increase accessibility by avoiding unnecessary travel for patients in rural areas or with limited mobility. I see great potential for the expansion of telemedicine in areas such as psychiatry and psychotherapy or for dermatologists, where there are often long waiting times for an appointment. In these cases, digital supplementary services can help to ensure comprehensive medical care in the future despite a shortage of skilled workers. This requires not only a legal framework, but also experts in the fields of IT and machine learning, along with a corresponding training program. Only in this way can the healthcare system be equipped with the necessary technological foundations.”
About the study
The study examined the percentage of doctors who offer the option of booking online appointments on Doctolib, compared to the percentage of doctors who also offer video consultations. Subsequently, a comparison was made of which of the 18 specialist areas analyzed most frequently offer the option of a video consultation and in which of the twenty largest German cities most video consultations are offered. Doctolib also lists medical practices that do not offer online appointment booking. These were not included in the study. The data was collected between March 10 and 17, 2025