Medical rehabilitation (rehab) refers to measures to restore, improve and maintain health after an illness, an operation or an accident. Medical rehabilitation measures are generally carried out in preventive care or rehabilitation centres with which the responsible insurance provider has concluded a care contract.

Rehabilitation can help you to avoid the permanent onset of a disability or need for care or to cope better with the consequences of your illness. In this case, your health insurance fund will cover the costs.

If rehabilitation is intended to restore your ability to work, medical rehabilitation benefits are provided by the pension insurance fund.

In the event of an occupational illness or accident at work, accident insurance is the responsible service provider.

The services can be provided on an inpatient basis, but increasingly also on an outpatient basis for the whole day and last around three weeks. They can be shortened or extended if medically necessary.

The most common illnesses requiring rehabilitation include

• Joint and spinal disorders
• Diseases of the cardiovascular system
• mental illnesses
• Cancer

The health insurance fund is responsible for special forms of preventive care or rehabilitation such as mother or father-child treatment or geriatric rehabilitation.

Preference and right to choose
You are welcome to tell your insurance provider (health insurance, pension insurance, accident insurance, etc.) about your wishes for a particular rehabilitation centre. Your insurance provider will check whether these wishes can be honoured. Your personal life and family situation will also be taken into account.

However, it is always important that the rehabilitation goal can be achieved in the rehabilitation centre you have chosen with the same effect and in the same quality as in the centre your insurance provider would have chosen.

Health insurance: If there is no sufficient reason for you to choose a more expensive facility, you can still select it if it is medically suitable and has a care contract. In this case, you will have to pay up to half of the additional costs to the health insurance company yourself. The statutory co-payment must be made to the rehabilitation centre regardless of this.