Energy costs: Who can still afford care?

Electricity, heat, personnel costs – everything is becoming more expensive. Also for nursing homes. The costs must be borne by the residents or their relatives. For some it will be tight.

“It’s really hard for a lot of people, this personal contribution,” says Susanne Munder, whose mother is in a nursing home. They are still doing well themselves: “Fortunately, it’s not that bad for us personally. My father has made good provisions, my mother is well taken care of, it won’t be existential.”

For her mother and the other 40 or so residents in the Kronenhof retirement home in Großerlach in the Stuttgart region, there is plum cake on this day. Also exercises in the common room for the mobilization of shoulders and arms. Those here who have made good provisions can bear the rising costs. But for many – in case of doubt also relatives – it should be tight: For new admissions in the Kronenhof, 3300 euros per month are quickly due. That is now 230 euros more per person than before.

That’s the page. “On the other hand, I know that it’s still not easy for nursing homes to operate,” says Munder. “What care does in our country has always been underestimated.” Therefore, the cost is a difficult balancing act.

Calculate with cost explosion

Alexander Flint is the one who has to perform this nearly impossible stretch. He likes the nursing profession, learned it himself, and has been running the family-run home for 20 years. Now he speaks of “literally exploding costs” in purchasing, energy and staff. A development that he has seen for years and that is now intensifying. With the Collective Bargaining Act, employers in care have to join a collective agreement or pay an average wage.

Flint chose the latter. He emphasizes that he has been paying fair wages for a long time because he has been applying the employment contract guidelines of the bpa employers’ association for the private social economy for years. This is a voluntary commitment with minimum requirements and country-specific wage tables.

The carrier for the Kronenhof has just negotiated the new care rate with the health insurance companies. A bargain for every penny, says Flint. This time the rate increases by 6.5 percent; the increase used to be double digits. Costs that he has to generate, and some of which the residents and their relatives have to bear. “We have not been in this dilemma since yesterday, but since the introduction of long-term care insurance,” says Flint.

Capping and subsidies as possible solutions

Elsewhere, personal contributions of 4000 euros and more are feared for individual care places. The Evangelische Heimstiftung, one of the larger providers of care facilities in Baden-Württemberg, is therefore calling for a system change. Not the subsidies from the health insurance companies, but the own contributions of those in need of care and their relatives should therefore be limited.

In addition, the federal states should pay a monthly nursing home allowance for everyone who lives in such facilities. Bernhard Schneider, managing director of the home foundation, explains: “The residents then only pay a fixed share of the care-related expenses, the rest is paid for by the care insurance fund.” In this way, politicians could provide relief in the short term, says Schneider.

“What’s next year?”

A relief that home operators like Flint desperately want. Because: “What’s next year?” he asks. The owner fears higher advance payments for energy costs, increased heating costs. And he would rather not know what the year after next is.

Despite this, he doesn’t give up, keeps trying to keep a budget and remains surprisingly in a good mood. Flint greets residents in a friendly manner, like Munder’s mother during her relaxation exercises in the common room, takes time out for a quick chat with another resident, and then returns to his desk.