I’m writing a newspaper article about the German healthcare system, and one point I want to make is that there are many hospital beds in Germany. Why are there so many? check here
Germany’s universal health insurance system requires a minimum number of acute hospital-care beds per head of population.
In Germany, the hospital-bed quota is set at 8.3% of total hospital capacity as of 2014, compared with 5.9% in France and 1.8% in Britain — according to data from the OECD (pdf).
Many believe that this explains why so many hospitals have been built recently across Germany’s rural areas, where there are often few doctors or general practitioners willing to work.
The OECD puts the number at 8.3% of total hospital capacity as of 2014, compared with 5.9% in France and 1.8% in Britain.
The OECD puts the number at 8.3% of total hospital capacity as of 2014, compared with 5.9% in France and 1.8% in Britain. This is based on OECD data from 2014.
The OECD also says that Germany was below average in terms of how much time patients had to wait for specialist treatment after being referred by their GP (18 days on average), which is a key indicator for measuring access to care.
Hospitals are funded by the states through regional sickness funds.
Hospitals are funded by the states through regional sickness funds. These sickness funds are public and pay for medical treatment in hospitals. They also offer other services, such as outpatient care and rehabilitation. As a result, they manage a large part of Germany’s health system.
The hospital funding system has its roots in history: In 1948, the new German constitution established a federal state with 16 separate Länder (states). Each Land has its own parliament and government to represent local needs. The federal government is responsible for making some laws at national level but not others; these responsibilities were divided among six areas known as “baskets.” This system was designed so that each basket would be handled separately by either the state or federal levels of government—and it largely still holds true today.
A 2013 OECD report said about half of all patients admitted to a hospital bed could be treated as outpatients.
You might think that half of hospital beds being used for outpatient care is a waste of public money. You’d be right—it is. It’s also a waste of hospital beds, doctors’ time and patient time. But what can we do about it?
But sickness funds are reluctant to send patients home because they fear the complaints from the patient or their relatives if a serious complication arises later on.
But sickness funds are reluctant to send patients home because they fear the complaints from the patient or their relatives if a serious complication arises later on.
The more patients hospitals treat, the more money they receive from health insurers. This is because there are fixed costs for each hospital bed and these costs cannot be reduced without reducing staff or material resources.
The “S2k” guidelines for medical practitioners, set up by health insurers, make it difficult for doctors to discharge patients too quickly without being sued for negligence.
One reason why there are so many hospital beds in Germany is that doctors fear being sued by patients. This is because the “S2k” guidelines for medical practitioners, set up by health insurers, make it difficult for doctors to discharge patients too quickly without being sued for negligence.
Doctors also fear being sued by other healthcare professionals: nurses who think they are not doing their job properly, or lawyers who believe that a patient received inadequate care. As a result of this reluctance on the part of medical professionals, it can take weeks before an elderly person with dementia is released from hospital.
The more patients hospitals treat, the more money they receive from health insurers.
The more patients they treat, the more money they receive from health insurers. The more money they receive, the more they can invest in new technology and equipment.
The better quality of care you get at a hospital, the more patients will want to go there.
Hospitals need to do less incentivising of doctors and more incentivising of sickness funds.
However, there are also other ways to incentivise hospitals to release patients more quickly. In the United States, for example, the cost of paying for each day in hospital is extremely high. This means that doctors and nurses have an incentive to get patients discharged as quickly as possible. In Germany, however, this isn’t quite so clear: sickness funds only pay fixed fees per patient per day—and if they don’t discharge someone after 30 days (or 90 days), they’ll have paid out a lot more than if it had only taken 10 days. So there’s not necessarily an obvious financial incentive on the hospital side to get people out early; rather than being incentivised by money alone, they could be motivated by something else entirely (such as avoiding bad publicity).
But while these kinds of incentives aren’t currently in place in Germany (or at least not very effective ones) there is one option that would work well: sickness funds should pay hospitals for each patient discharged from their care—but penalise them financially if that patient needs readmission within 90 days after discharge! And it would also mean penalising them financially when someone dies during their stay at the hospital too—that way we’ll see those sick people get better faster!
Conclusion
The OECD has recommended a series of reforms to Germany’s health system, including better training for doctors, more transparency around hospital budgets and an overhaul of the funding process. It also said the government should look into ways to reduce unnecessary admissions. But there are other options: Germany could introduce incentives that encourage doctors and hospitals to discharge patients early or refer them home on alternate days with extra funding from sickness funds if they do so safely.
