Billions are seeping into the healthcare system

Mirror report: Business consultants see billions grave bureaucracy in the statutory health system

01/01/2012

According to a study by the management consultancy A.T. Kearney, the administrative costs of the German health system are much higher than previously thought. Billions will be spent on bureaucratic tasks that, according to experts, would not have to be. This reports the news magazine „The mirror“ and refers to existing study results of the management consultancy.

Billions could be saved
The statutory health insurance companies could save billions of spending and thus ensure more stable rates of contributions. The total expenditure of the funds last year accounted for 23 percent of administrative expenditure. Thus, around 40.8 billion of the total expenditure of 176 billion euros was spent on bureaucracy alone. By comparison, in the private and industrial sectors, the share of administrative expenses is just 6.1 percent, according to the study.

Furthermore, the Spiegel report states that the costs are not only caused by the company-internal tasks of the health insurance companies, but also in the entire healthcare industry such as clinics, pharmacies or medical practices. Officially, the health insurance companies report an administrative burden of 9.5 billion euros. AT. Kearney published, another 18 billion euros, which are so far reported in any official evaluation, accounted for bureaucratic expenses. Doctors in hospitals have to spend 37 percent of their time on administrative tasks, due to strict regulations alone. Just as complex and time-consuming are the accounting procedures of physicians in private practice. A cost driver in the opinion of the management consultants are the practice fees. Health insurance companies estimate the revenue by quarterly fees at around 2.0 billion euros annually.

German health system too complex
The German health system has one „Achieves complexity that is no longer adequately manageable“, write the experts in the sheet. If the structures were made leaner, the statutory contribution rate could be reduced from 15.5 to 14.2 percent. At least, however, care could be taken to keep the contribution rate stable in the future.

According to the consultants' calculations, at least € 13 billion could be saved in health care when the restructuring was carried out. For the study, about 6000 clinicians, outpatient medical practices, pharmacies and medical supplies were surveyed.

In contrast, the health insurance companies complain about the rapidly rising expenditure on medicines. In 2010 alone, medications worth 34 billion euros were prescribed by GPs. This was the result of analyzes by the Central Association of Statutory Health Insurance. Medication spending has been rising steadily for years.

In the first nine months of the past year 2011, the statutory health insurance funds generated a billion surplus of 3.9 billion euros. The main reason for the additional revenue was hardly structural reforms but the economic recovery in the labor market. Health economists expect a maximum revenue surplus of eight billion euros. Nevertheless, cash contributions should not be lowered. (Sb)

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Picture: Berlin-pics