Pharmaceutical expenditure in Hamburg high

Pharmaceutical expenditure in Hamburg above average

08/02/2014

Drug spending in the far north is significantly different. While in the first quarter of the current year, each legally insured Hamburg has been prescribed drugs worth 175 euros, it was at the Schleswig-Holsteiner funds in the amount of only 134 euros.

Spending in Hamburg above average
On average, every legally insured person in Hamburg was prescribed drugs worth 175 euros in the first quarter of the current year. As the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) announced on Friday, citing the statistics of the GKV-Spitzenverbandes, the drug expenditure per person was thus above average. The amount for the period between January and March was thus 25 percent above the national average of 140 euros. The resident physicians in the Hanseatic city therefore prescribed their patients medicines worth a total of 257.6 million euros.

Large regional differences detectable
The drug costs amounted nationwide 9.8 billion euros. According to the TK, the distribution shows large regional differences. The costs of medicines per capita in Schleswig-Holstein were significantly lower than in Hamburg. At 134 euros, they were even below the federal average. Even less were it with 126 euros (10 percent below the national average) in Bavaria. In Schleswig-Holstein, a total of 321.7 million euros were prescribed.

Prescription medication has increased
A few weeks ago, the Baden-Württemberg TK-Landesvertretung had reported that the prescription of medicines had increased significantly in the past year and reached a new high in the southwest. According to the report, around 30 billion euros are spent on statutory health insurance for drugs nationwide. As it was said in a dpa report, citing the head of the TK-Landesvertretung Baden-Württemberg, the growing willingness to prescribe medication, a possible reason for the significant increase in the prescribed daily doses. This, in turn, may be due to the tendency of physicians and patients to focus on remedies instead of possibly changing unhealthy behaviors. (Ad)

Picture: Andrea Damm