Physiotherapy in Spain with Sanitas
The thing nobody mentions about physiotherapy on insurance is that it needs paperwork first. Sanitas pays for it only with a doctor's prescription and its own authorisation, and people find that out when they try to book, which is the worst possible moment.
What a physiotherapist actually treats
Most people come through the door with one of four things. A back or neck that has seized up. A joint that hurts and has stopped moving properly. Recovery after an operation, most often a knee, hip or shoulder. Or a sports injury that has not settled on its own.
The treatment is hands-on and it takes several visits. That matters more here than in most specialties, because Sanitas pays for physiotherapy only with a prescription and its prior authorisation.
The authorisation, and why it catches people out
Physiotherapy has no fixed number of sessions per year on Sanitas plans, but it is not automatic. It is covered only for conditions of the muscles, bones and joints, it needs a prescription and prior authorisation from Sanitas, and it stops being covered once the rehabilitation doctor judges that you have recovered as far as possible or the treatment has become maintenance. Home physiotherapy is excluded on most plans.
If you are recovering from surgery and your physio wants twice a week for three months, ask at the first appointment how many sessions the physio thinks you need, so that the prescription and the authorisation request cover the whole course.
If Sanitas stops authorising sessions because you have recovered as far as possible, you can keep going privately at your own cost. Sanitas network clinics usually charge less to policyholders than to walk-ins, so it is worth asking rather than going elsewhere.
How quickly you are seen
There is no waiting period on physiotherapy, so you can start from the day your policy starts, as soon as you have the prescription and Sanitas has authorised it. After that you are limited by the clinic's own diary, and physio clinics tend to run fuller than specialist consulting rooms.
Barcelona has 106 clinics and Madrid 60, so in the cities you will usually find something within the week. Smaller provinces have fewer, and a popular physio in a coastal town can be booked up.
Where the physios are
1,152 clinics across 50 provinces, with 2,026 named specialists between them – and you choose the clinic yourself, but Sanitas needs a prescription (the boletin) from a traumatologist and its own authorisation before treatment starts.
- Barcelona – 106 clinics, 231 physiotherapists
- Madrid – 60 clinics, 322 physiotherapists
- Malaga – 58 clinics, 100 physiotherapists
- Vizcaya – 54 clinics, 62 physiotherapists
- Murcia – 49 clinics, 85 physiotherapists
- Valencia – 48 clinics, 89 physiotherapists
- Seville – 47 clinics, 72 physiotherapists
Physiotherapy is one of the better-covered specialties outside the big cities, because it does not need hospital equipment. Most decent-sized towns have somewhere.
Language at the appointment
Physiotherapy is a specialty where being able to explain exactly where it hurts genuinely matters. Ask us and we will check who is near you and what languages they work in.
What you pay at the clinic
On a plan without co-payments, nothing. The session is covered by your monthly premium, once Sanitas has authorised the treatment.
On a plan with co-payments, physiotherapy is treated better than almost anything else, because Sanitas knows it means repeat visits. On Mas Salud Optima a physiotherapy session costs €2, against €4 or more for an ordinary appointment. On Accede and Avanza it is a single €20 co-payment for the whole course, not per session – physiotherapy is named in their high-frequency list alongside ventilation therapy and oxygen therapy.
So the usual argument does not hold here. If physiotherapy is the main reason you are thinking about cover, a co-payment plan is normally the cheaper way to get it, because you pay less each month and the co-payment for physiotherapy is small.
See every Sanitas waiting period in one place, including how switching from another insurer waives nearly all of them.
Find a physiotherapist near you
Browse physiotherapists in the Sanitas directory – every clinic by province, with addresses, phone numbers and a map.
