This is what you have to do to get the costs covered

In principle, an application for reimbursement of costs for photodynamic therapy must first be submitted to the respective health insurance company. This application should be made well before the start of the planned treatment, as it usually takes some time before such an application is approved. Frequently, the first application is followed by a rejection by the health insurance company.

If there is nevertheless an important medical reason for photodynamic therapy, the treating physician can draw up a letter of objection. Frequently, however, the application is rejected. In this case, photodynamic therapy must be applied for as an individual health service (IGEL).

The dermatologist uses photodynamic therapy mainly for the treatment of actinic keratosis. This is a precursor to skin cancer, which responds particularly well to the therapy. In dermatology, however, the therapy has not yet been included in the catalog of fees, which is why it is often difficult to cover the costs.

However, depending on the size of the skin areas to be treated, costs of about 350 Euro per session can be expected. However, the costs can vary depending on the effort involved. In addition, the number of sessions required for treatment varies greatly from individual to individual.

At the dentist, photodynamic therapy serves to destroy bacterial pathogens that cause gum inflammation. The calculation of the costs for the therapy depends on the number of affected teeth and the severity of the disease. Thus, the costs are mainly based on the time required for the photodynamic therapy.

The calculation is then based on the private scale of fees for physicians. Since the various variables vary greatly from person to person, it is not possible to give an exact figure for the costs. The calculation takes place in each individual case.

Since the costs also depend on the frequency of the therapy sessions, one must reckon with costs between a few hundred and several thousand Euros.Except in very special cases, the costs are not covered by health insurance. Our next topic might also be of interest to you: Costs of a root canal treatmentPhotodynamic therapy is used by the ophthalmologist to irradiate new blood vessels on the retina. As a rule, the full costs are covered by health insurance companies. There are exceptions for a few special diseases, where photodynamic therapy is not expected to improve vision or only a minimal improvement. Thus in some special cases of age-related wet macular degeneration as well as in cases of a visual acuity below 0.1 the costs are often not covered anymore.