My doctor is an affiliated doctor. What does this mean?

Doctors who are employed directly by a hospital work in an employment relationship. This means that they are permanently employed by the hospital, work exclusively for it and are also integrated into the organisational and administrative hospital structure. They are subject to the working hours, duty rosters, regulations and hierarchies of the respective hospital, whereby the head physician is responsible for the standards of medical care and quality assurance. As a rule, doctors in this type of employment relationship do not have a separate practice.

In contrast, affiliated doctors work independently in their own practices and enter into partnerships with hospitals in order to ‘occupy’ beds for their patients. Affiliated doctors operate in both public and private hospitals. In the affiliated doctor system, the doctor in private practice remains the patient's primary carer both before, during and after the hospital stay.

How do I choose a doctor and a hospital?

The relationship of trust between doctor and patient is of great importance: as the person receiving treatment, you must feel safe with your doctor. If in doubt, seek advice from your family doctor's practice or get several opinions if necessary. If you decide in favour of an attending physician, it is possible that the operation may be performed in different hospitals.

The choice of hospital should not be underestimated: It is often worth checking how many such procedures a clinic performs and whether it has a high level of specialisation in the area relevant to you. Both are good indicators of the professionalism and routine of the hospital staff and the standardisation of hospital processes, which makes a procedure safer.

One example of a highly specialised clinic is the Rosenklinik Rapperswil, which has adapted all processes and structures within the clinic for its agile+® fast-track procedure so that patients undergoing orthopaedic procedures such as the insertion of an artificial joint benefit from an optimised surgical process, closer care and a more successful healing process. Here you will find all the doctors who operate according to agile+® at the Rosenklinik.