That's one suggestion. Please see the glossary entry for more ideas.

HTH


Sheila

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Note added at 2002-10-04 13:06:20 (GMT)
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I\'d perhaps translate Wahlarzt as private doctor

Was ist denn das, ein Wahlarzt?
Ein Wahlarzt ist ein Arzt (weiblich oder männlich), der mit den Krankenkassen keinen
sogenannten Kassenvertrag hat. Damit ist er nicht in der Lage, sein Honorar direkt
mit den Krankenkassen zu verrechnen. Statt dessen verrechnet er dem Patienten
seine Leistung.

http://www.taborapotheke.at/steyr/Tabor-Apotheke.nsf/$Info/ECB879669F13C80DC1256B5500546389

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Note added at 2002-10-04 13:13:25 (GMT)
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Eurodicautom\'s definition of Belegarzt:


Definition Medical head of a specialist department or group containing up to 20 beds.He is not,however,an employee of the hospital but an established Kassenarzt in general pratice who may also treat patients in hospital.
Reference Hospitals EEC
(1) - - no entry -
Note {NTE}  Federal Republic of Germany


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Note added at 2002-10-04 13:14:51 (GMT)
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Another definition given by Eurodicautom:

(1) TERM practitioner with cottage-hospital affiliation
Reference Reallex Med


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Note added at 2002-10-04 13:15:55 (GMT)
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Belegarzt (Substantiv; Maskulinum; der ... ein) SHI-physician with in-patient authorization

http://www.dicdata.de/

is the formal description. Wahlarzt is the 'personal physician'. In hospital paperwork, they talk about physicians rather than doctors. Doctor is more informal. Just the way it is.

only some of the answers by SJH may be correct; however,
"SHI-physician with in-patient authorization" is suspect, because it's exclusively to be found on one single German site,
and about
"practitioner with cottage-hospital affiliation" I'm not really sure, what "cottage hospitals" exactly stand for.
Anyway, a Belegarzt certainly isn't one, who is "permanently assigned to the hospital". To the contrary, the Belegarzt works in private practice, but additionally to his mainly outpatient work he has, by contract, the right to use some beds in a hospital. This usually concernes those "smaller" specialties like ophthalmology etc., for wich a complete hospital department wouldn't make sense financially.
Greetings,

Nikolaus


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Note added at 2002-10-04 22:33:49 (GMT) Post-grading
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After I have had \"cottage-hospital\" explained, I come to the conclusion, that \"practitioner with cottage-hospital affiliation\" is the closest possible \'short\' translation for Belegarzt (as long as anybody still knows, what a cottage-hospital is).