Mental illnesses cause high costs

Health System: Mental illnesses are causing a steep increase in costs

Since 2002, the health care costs of mental health disorders such as dementia and depression have increased by about 32 percent. In contrast, the average cost increase for all illnesses was only about 16 percent. Thus, mental illnesses with a cost of just under 28.7 billion euros are now in third place of the Federal Statistical Office's disease cost calculation. Only cardiovascular diseases (€ 37 billion) and diseases of the digestive system (€ 34.8 billion) cause even more costs in the healthcare system. Among the mental illnesses form the dementia diseases with 9.4 billion euros and depression with 5.2 billion euros the two largest positions.

Backgrounds about:
Increase in mental illness in adolescents
Depression (Depressed Syndrome)
Absenteeism: Increase in mental illness

The causes of the enormous increase in costs

The causes of the enormous increase in mental health costs are complex and controversial among experts. It is clear that the number of cases has risen enormously. What this condition is, however, also the experts do not know exactly, so the speaker of the Federal Psychotherapeutic Chamber, Johannes Klein-Hessling. It is believed that on the one hand mental illnesses are recognized more frequently today, i. frequent treatments can be availed. On the other hand, feel people who z. Those suffering from depression today are far less stigmatized than they were just a few years ago and are therefore more likely to seek help from the psychotherapist.

In addition, the experts of the health insurance assume that the stress in the working life contributes a substantial portion to the increase of mental illnesses. For example, about 18 percent of Germans have ever suffered from depression in their lifetime and around 4 million people are currently suffering from moderate to severe depression (about 5 percent of the population). It can be assumed that the number of unreported cases is considerably higher, because even today, not all depression is recognized and treated as such. In the case of dementia, the massive increase in costs is mainly due to the increased life expectancy, as there are more and more old people and with the age of the mental infirmities increase.

The Federal Ministry of Health hopes to gain further insight into the exact circumstances leading to an extremely high number of mental illnesses from a comprehensive health study, the evaluation of which is only scheduled for the end of 2011.

The fact that the increase in mental health costs is so high is, in addition to the growing number of cases, also due to the intensity of treatment required for such diseases. So z. For example, the Barmer GEK determines that patients with a mental illness in the hospital spend an average of around three weeks there.

The absenteeism of workers due to mental illness has also increased dramatically in recent years, as the BKK and the AOK's scientific institute found in separate investigations. According to the experts, approx. 8.6 percent of sick leave days were due to mental illness in 2009. Thus, mental illnesses are the fourth-most common cause of sick days absent. In addition, mental illness is also increasingly a reason for early retirement from work.

In the course of the massive increase in mental illness and the need for therapists has risen extremely, so that z. For example, the number of psychotherapists has risen from 16,500 to around 20,000 between 2002 and 2008, according to the professional representation. For the increase in costs, however, these are not to blame, said a spokesman for the Psychotherapeutenkammer, as their share of the total medical fee is too small to have a significant impact on the entire cost accounting.

Another cost factor of mental illness does not appear in the previous bill, but can be well read on the basis of the response of the Federal Ministry of Health to a request of the Green parliamentary group: The cost of mental illness related production losses amount to almost four billion euros annually, the failure in the gross value added in Germany is even just under seven billion euros, so the response of the Federal Ministry of Health, citing a statistic of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. If these figures are summed up with the above-mentioned illness-related costs, this results in a sum of approx. 78 billion euros, which is lost to gross value added in Germany due to the illnesses of the employees. (Sb)