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The referral platform for care

Find suitable care and organise it together.

Whether you are a hospital social service, a medical practice, an advisory service or a private individual looking for care for yourself or a relative: you post the care need once. Pflege Patienten informs the registered home care services and care providers in the service area. They get in touch if they can take on the entire care or individual services.

Seek care
Offer care

Seeking care is free of charge. Offering care: €99 plus VAT per location per month.

Private individual? How to find care for yourself or your relatives

Example · preview

Care need in Sampletown · home care · start in 2 weeks

Approx. 6 km from your location · care level 3 · age group 80–89 years · diagnosis group: heart failure and heart disease · payer: statutory

  • Medical treatment carealready covered
  • Personal careopen
  • Domestic assistanceinterest expressed – no commitment yet
Invented sample data. This is how care providers see the key data of a care need – without names.

Four steps to a response

1. Post the care need

Describe what support is needed, in which region and from when.

2. Inform care providers

Registered home care services and care providers whose service area and location profile match the care need receive a notification.

3. Review responses

Interested care providers tell you which care they can offer.

4. Agree the care

Clarify the acceptance and confirm the agreed services with the care provider.

For the care request you do not have to select individual care providers and write to them one after another.

How it works in detail

Not every provider has to take on everything.

Sometimes part of the care is already organised. Pflege Patienten shows which services are still open. Care providers can express interest in exactly these areas.

Example

Which services are still open?

  • Medical treatment carealready covered
  • Personal careopen
  • Domestic assistanceinterest expressed – no commitment yet
Invented example. An expression of interest does not yet secure the care.

Three ways to Pflege Patienten

Are you looking for care for yourself or a relative?

Describe once what support is needed – free of charge and without calling every home care service individually.

For private individuals and relatives

Do you organise care professionally?

Hospital social services, medical practices and advisory services record the care need once and keep track of the responses in one place.

For hospitals, practices and advisory services

Do you offer care?

Home care services and care providers review regional requests and express interest in services they can offer.

Offer care

What Pflege Patienten looks like

Real views of the platform with invented sample data. Click on an image to enlarge it. The screenshots show the German user interface.

Portal view ‘Post a care need’ of a social service (German user interface): at the top the three pages ‘What is needed?’, ‘Where, from when and for whom?’ and ‘Review and publish’ as well as the switch ‘Detailed information’ for the extended version; on page 1 the question ‘Where should the care take place?’ with four tiles (at home, permanently in a care home, short-term care, day care) and the note that one to three options can be chosen; at the bottom ‘Save and continue’ and ‘Save draft’ with the note that care providers only see the draft once it has been published.
Posting a care need on three pages – View with invented sample data, location made unrecognisable.
Portal view ‘Offer care’ of a home care service (German user interface): tabs all, new, in progress, assigned and archive; expanded filter by type of care, service and planned discharge with the options ‘Only new cases’ and ‘Show hidden cases’; below, the cases in the service area with type of care, the town Musterstadt, start, case number and open services.
Finding requests in the service area – View with invented sample data, location made unrecognisable.
Portal view ‘Express interest’ in a case (German user interface): for each service area (personal care under SGB XI, medical treatment care under SGB V) the option ‘We can provide this service’ with an optional possible start and an optional comment, the link ‘Use the start of the first service offered for all’, an optional message to the referring organisation (at most 500 characters, without names of patients) and the counter ‘0 of 2 services offered’.
Expressing interest in individual services – View with invented sample data, location made unrecognisable.

A simple model. Clear responsibilities.

Seek care

€0 Posting is free of charge
  • For hospitals, medical practices, advisory services, private individuals and providers passing on a care need
  • Post a care need once, regional care request
  • No platform fee for posting
Register free of charge

Offer care

€99 per location per month, plus VAT
  • For home care services and care providers that handle care requests and agree acceptances
  • Interest in the entire care or in individual services
  • The subscription only starts with the first expression of interest
  • Cancellable at the end of the current contract month, no minimum term
  • Offer for several locations of an operator or association on request
  • No commission per patient
Register your location
Prices in detail

Getting started together in your region.

A regional referral network depends on care being both sought and offered. On the regional participation page you can find the current status in the regions and how you can take part.

Regional participation
Service area: 1–150 km around the location

Developed from a problem in everyday care.

Pflege Patienten is intended to make it easier for people and organisations who seek or offer care to coordinate with each other. The focus is on clear responses and an easy-to-understand process.

Pflege Patienten is operated and developed by PHP Schmiede KG, based in Rheine, Germany.

Read more: About us · Data protection and security

Frequently asked questions

Pflege Patienten is a platform for arranging care. A care need is posted once. Registered care providers in the service area are informed and can express interest in the entire care or in individual services.

Yes. Private individuals can post a care need free of charge for themselves or – as an authorised representative – for a relative. To do so, they register in the portal as a private individual and give their consent directly there. Home care services and care providers in your region are informed and get in touch if they are interested.

No. It is about the care of patients by care providers and services – not about job offers, recruitment or temporary staffing.

No. The care request does not require you to select individual providers. All registered home care services and care providers are informed whose service area covers the place of the care need and whose location profile matches it – for example in type of care, open service category and admission requirements – including locations without a location subscription. They decide for themselves whether they can offer care.

Yes, partial care is part of the model. Services that are already covered and services that are still open are shown separately. A care provider can, for example, express interest only in medical treatment care without taking on other service categories.

No. The platform makes requests and responses possible. Whether a care provider can take on the care depends on its capacity and on the specific agreement.

There is no platform fee for posting a care need. This says nothing about how the care services themselves are funded – that depends on your long-term care insurance fund (Pflegekasse) or statutory health insurance fund, or on your agreement with the care provider.

All questions and answers

Which part do you play?

Seek care
Offer care

Private individual? Find care for yourself or a relative