Berlin, 22.02.2024 – The Mediation Committee of the Bundesrat has allowed the controversial Hospital Transparency Act to pass unchanged. Leading associations of private and non-profit hospitals had called on the federal states not to allow the law to pass in view of the economic hardship faced by all hospitals.
No improvements were made to the deficit operating cost financing. The urgently needed compensation for inflation and an increase in the state base rates will now come at best with the planned Hospital Care Improvement Act (KHVVG), which is to be passed by the Federal Cabinet on 27 April 2024. The content, design and amount of any aid are now once again in the hands of Federal Minister Lauterbach. A legal regulation that really helps hospitals cannot be expected until 1 July 2024 or 1 January 2025 at the earliest. “Too late,” says BDPK Managing Director Thomas Bublitz, “many hospitals will not live to see this aid.”
In the view of private and non-profit hospitals, the liquidity aid promised by Federal Health Minister Lauterbach is at best a drop in the ocean. Moreover, this is money that the hospitals are entitled to anyway. However, additional funds must be made available quickly in order to cushion the hospitals’ deficits and avert further insolvencies. According to the deficit clock of the German Hospital Federation, the deficit of German hospitals is currently increasing by 504 million euros every month. The aim must be sustainable funding that pays adequately for hospital services. In view of the high inflation costs, the upcoming wage increases and the still inadequate investment funding by the federal states, this is not currently the case.
If sustainable funding is not quickly found for all hospitals, regardless of their ownership, then the cold structural change in the hospital landscape will continue unchecked. Non-profit and private hospitals are particularly affected by this. Public hospitals, on the other hand, receive millions from local authorities and federal states as deficit compensation.
However, this practice is an unlawful distortion of competition, as demonstrated by a legal opinion commissioned by the Federal Association of German Private Hospitals, the German Protestant Hospital Association, the German Red Cross and the Catholic Hospital Association and presented in November 2023. Despite this, the one-sided subsidisation of state hospitals continues unabated. As a result, taxpayers’ money is being improperly diverted, which is then not used for important public services such as childcare, schools or infrastructure projects.
Healthcare services of general interest can only be provided jointly. Public hospitals, which account for only one third of hospitals in Germany, cannot fulfil this important task for society alone. In many regions, private and non-profit clinics are indispensable pillars of healthcare provision. Moreover, together they account for two thirds of all hospitals.
The federal and state governments must therefore finally give in. Instead of symbolic liquidity support at best, they must now put together a sustainable financing package for hospitals. This is also necessary to ensure that hospitals that are actually irreplaceable for the care of people in their region are not lost even before the upcoming hospital reform.
Article published on the BDPK website.