Persian-speaking Allied health

Physiotherapy, speech therapy, acupuncture, nutrition counselling, home care and dental labs all sit on one page, and the money works in three completely different ways across them. Sort that out before you book anything: one route starts with a doctor's prescription and leaves you a small share to pay, one is covered by statutory insurance only in defined situations and is entirely yours outside them, and one is private from the start, or is not even working for you but for a dental practice. Whoever does not know which of the three they are standing in is the one who gets a surprise bill.

In an emergency, or if there is a risk to life, call 112. Outside surgery hours the medical on-call service answers on 116 117, and it can also help you find an appointment. This page is only a directory and is not an emergency service.

What the Verified badge does and does not say

Verified says one thing only: a real person stands behind this profile and manages it themselves. YabInfy does not check anyone's certificates, licences, experience or competence, and the badge is not for sale.

Who does what here

• Physiotherapists: movement, pain and rehabilitation after an injury or an operation, usually as a course.
• Speech therapists: speech, voice, swallowing and language development, for children and for adults after a neurological illness.
• Acupuncture: practised in Germany both by doctors and by alternative practitioners (Heilpraktiker), which changes the billing.
• Nutritionists: nutrition counselling, usually sold as a course.
• Chiropractors: manual treatment of the spine and joints.
• Care services: help at home, from services contracted to the care insurance funds to help with everyday tasks.
• Dental labs: crowns, bridges and dentures, made for a dental practice rather than for you directly.

Route one: prescribed, and largely covered

Physiotherapy and speech therapy count as Heilmittel in the German system: they start with a prescription from a doctor, not with your phone call. Three things people learn too late:

• You choose the practice. The doctor writes down the type of treatment and the number of sessions, but the prescription does not tie you to any particular provider.
• The prescription has a start-by date. If the first session slips past the deadline printed on it, the practice can no longer bill it and you need a new slip. Look at the date the day you are handed it, and start calling the same day.
• Part of the cost is yours. Statutory insurance charges the standard patient contribution for these treatments: a fixed amount per prescription plus a percentage of the cost of the sessions, unless you hold an exemption. Only your own insurer can tell you the amount and whether you are exempt.

One more thing that costs money: a long gap between sessions can invalidate the prescription, and many practices charge for an appointment left empty without notice.

Route two: covered, but only conditionally

Acupuncture and nutrition counselling both sit here, and both call for the same move: ask your own insurer before you book a course.

• Acupuncture: statutory insurance covers it only for defined indications and within a set framework, and outside those it is self-pay. Whether the practitioner is a doctor or a Heilpraktiker also affects how it is invoiced, and top-up policies follow their own rules.
• Nutrition counselling: with a written recommendation from a doctor, part of the cost of a course may be reimbursed, but that decision belongs to the insurer, and some funds only accept counsellors holding a particular qualification. Get the answer in writing, then book the first session.

Route three: private from the start, or a different system

• Chiropractors: the work has no single protected title in Germany. A doctor with manual-therapy training can do it and so can an alternative practitioner, and in practice it is mostly billed privately. Ask what a session costs and what training that practitioner has for the technique.
• Dental labs: the lab's customer is the dental practice, not you. You normally meet their work as a separate line inside the written treatment and cost plan your dentist gives you, and explaining that line is the dentist's job (Doctors and dentists covers dental billing). Some labs take denture repairs directly, but you have to ask.

Care services run on their own system

Care is neither prescribed nor simply bought. It turns on an assessed care level (Pflegegrad): the application goes to the care insurance fund (Pflegekasse), an assessor visits the home, and that visit decides what gets funded. So the visit is the thing to prepare for. For a few days beforehand, write down where help is genuinely needed in ordinary daily tasks, and make sure whoever helps every day is there on the day. Conditions and amounts come from your own care insurance fund, and that is the only answer worth relying on.

Why a Persian-speaking practitioner matters here in particular

The language argument takes a different shape here, because none of this is a one-off visit. It runs for weeks, and every session opens with the same question: what has changed since last week. Whether the pain has moved, when it gets worse, which movement is possible now and which still is not. That short report is what the therapist builds the next session on, and if it arrives incomplete the treatment carries on by guesswork.

The second half matters more. A large part of the result depends on the home exercises, the work you do without the therapist in the room. An instruction half understood becomes an exercise half right, and weeks go by with no progress and no obvious reason. In speech therapy that is sharper still, because the exercises are often done by a family member with the child, so they have to understand them too. In home care, a shared language means the person coming through the door can talk to the patient and not only to the patient's daughter.

What to ask when you call

• Whether they accept a statutory prescription, and whether they have a contract with your fund.
• What your contribution is and what any private fee is, and whether you get it in writing before the start.
• How long the wait is for a first session, and whether a course can be booked at a fixed weekly time.
• Whether they hold the extra qualification your prescription needs. Some treatments, such as manual therapy or manual lymphatic drainage, require separate training and approval that not every practice has.
• Whether they make home visits, and whether their entrance is step-free.
• Whether the practitioner speaks Persian or only the front desk, and which person your sessions will be with.
• YabInfy checks none of this, so ask for it yourself, and ask to see the document where it matters.

Distance counts more here than usual

None of this work happens remotely: the therapist's hands are on you, and care happens in your own home. A course can run to ten sessions or more, so half an hour of extra travel each way is the commonest reason one gets abandoned halfway. The city list at the bottom of this page is where to start: take the nearest one and widen the circle from there. For home care it is the other way round, since the service comes to you, so ask whether your address falls inside the area they cover.

Choosing from this list

A review here tells you what a patient actually saw: whether sessions started on time, whether the course stayed with the same person or a different one each week, and how the home exercises were explained. Whether a treatment works for you is not something a review can decide on your behalf, because bodies and diagnoses differ. A profile without the Verified badge says nothing about the quality of the work either. Contact details sit behind "Show contact details" on each business.

On privacy: reading these pages and taking down a practice's number leaves no trace anyone else can see, because YabInfy never shows who viewed a profile or who got in touch. The only thing that appears under a name is a review you write yourself, so weigh up first how much of your treatment you want to make public.

For doctors, dentists and specialists, Doctors and dentists is the right place, and for therapy or psychiatry, Mental health. The FAQ explains how this site works, and if you run a practice, a lab or a care service, add your business.