Status: 06.03.2023 2:24 p.m
According to the AOK, there were 15 percent fewer treatments in hospitals last year. The main reason for this is pandemic-related staff shortages. The reduction of oversupply also plays a role, the health insurance company suspects.
The number of treatments in hospitals fell by 15 percent in 2022 compared to 2019. This is shown by an evaluation by the Scientific Institute of the AOK (WIdO).
In 2021 and 2020, 14 and 13 percent fewer cases were counted. In psychiatry, the decrease in 2022 was almost 11 percent. The evaluation of the WIdO on the number of hospital cases is based on the billing data of the AOK-insured persons, which represent about a third of the German population.
“Corona still had the German clinics firmly under control in the third year of the pandemic – but for different reasons than in the first waves of infection in 2020 and 2021,” said WIdO Managing Director Jürgen Klauber.
“The fall in the number of cases in the past year was no longer due to the fact that capacities were kept free for seriously ill corona patients, but essentially due to the enormous loss of staff as a result of the waves of infection caused by the omicron variant in 2022.”
Fewer hospital visits for heart attacks and strokes
The continuing decline in the number of cases of heart attacks and strokes is striking: Heart attack treatments fell by 13 percent compared to 2019, stroke treatments by 11 percent. The declines in these emergencies were even greater than in the first and second years of the pandemic.
“We can’t explain it one hundred percent,” said Klauber. Apparently, people with milder symptoms in particular were treated less in the hospital.
According to Jürgen Klauber, there is particular cause for concern with the decline in colon cancer operations. These fell by 16 percent compared to the time before the pandemic – and thus even more than in the first (10 percent) and second year of the pandemic (12 percent). According to Klauber, this could have something to do with the decline in colonoscopies. Breast cancer surgeries were down five percent from 2019.
overuse of certain diseases
Compared to 2019, the sharpest slumps were in cases that can also be treated in medical practices. Treatment for back pain and high blood pressure each fell by 35 percent, followed by chronic lung disease COPD (28 percent), diabetes (21 percent) and heart failure (14 percent).
“Corona is obviously having an accelerating effect here in terms of the greater need for outpatient treatment, which is urgently needed in Germany,” said Klauber. “In the case of individual diagnoses, the reduction in oversupply is likely to play a role in view of the large and ongoing slumps.”
More hygiene – less tonsillitis?
There was also a sharp drop of 35 percent in tonsillectomy. “One reason could be that the hygiene rules during the pandemic have reduced the occurrence of tonsillitis,” says Managing Director Jürgen Klauber.