In addition to preventive care, numerous individual health services (“IGe-L”) are offered in doctors' offices. These are not part of preventive care and must be paid for privately. A piece of information that gynecologists worked on together says the following:

"Health is a market. Profitability is its highest good. It organizes itself according to supply and demand and therefore tends to develop and advertise more and more: Drugs, apparatuses, laboratory tests. Especially during pregnancy, many additional services are sold, such as the so-called first trimester screening - because expectant parents want the best for their child.

The caring support, even without doing everything possible, quickly becomes a raw deal- also because this can often not be billed ... The Ige-L services are not considered medically necessary, otherwise they would be health insurance benefits. Many Ige-L services are also not medically covered. There is a lack of scientific evidence that they benefit and do not harm. They are an important source of income for those who offer them. "(1)

(1) Bauchentscheidungen – wissen was jetzt gut ist.“ Hrsg.: Netzwerk gegen Selektion durch Pränataldiagnostik, Arbeitskreis Frauengesundheit in Medizin, Psychotherapie und Gesellschaft, AWO Bundesverband, 2011.
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