A scalpel used to cost three euros, now it costs ten. Overall, the Bavarian hospitals recorded an increase in material costs of eight percent, and energy costs have doubled. “The cost explosion is hitting the clinics with full force,” complains the managing director of the Bavarian Hospital Society, Roland Engehausen. He therefore calls for inflation compensation of a four percent surcharge on all hospital bills as emergency aid. Otherwise there is a risk of “uncontrolled hospital deaths,” warns the managing director of the Munich Clinic, Axel Fischer.
Hospital associations are currently drawing attention nationwide to what they see as massive financial difficulties in German hospitals. The resentment of the Bavarian clinics is also directed against the federal government: A federal regulation prevents the associations from being allowed to negotiate with the health insurance companies about higher compensation payments at all. The scope for increasing health insurance payments per treatment is capped at 2.3 percent this year. Engehausen complains that the federal government has been aware of the problem for months. Further savings potential of the clinics is limited, there is a risk of severe cuts in the health care of the population.
“We are currently in an economy of shortages,” agrees Axel Fischer. The Ukraine crisis and the corona pandemic would add to the already existing structural problems in the hospital landscape. Expenditures are increasing while income is decreasing. Fischer calculates that on September 8, 2021, a year ago, his houses would have cared for 30 corona patients. As of September 8, 2022, there were 90. A year ago, around 350 beds were blocked, today there are around 550, i.e. around 20 percent of the total capacity. “We have been in a state of emergency for two and a half years, which has now become normal operation.”
In addition to quick help, the Bavarian hospitals are therefore asking the federal government to be allowed to negotiate with the health insurance companies about proven cost increases next year without upper limits. “It is a systemic error that this is currently prohibited by law and can now become our coffin nail,” says Engehausen.