Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences: The number of medical tourists fell by 34 percent in 2020
19.08.2022 11:41
According to surveys by the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences (H-BRS), 65,586 patients from abroad received inpatient treatment in Germany in 2020. This corresponds to a decrease of almost 34 percent compared to the previous year. In 2019 the number was just over 97,300. The number of outpatient treatments fell from an estimated 145,000 to around 97,000. As a result, sales in the German healthcare system fell significantly. In 2019, revenue from foreign patients amounted to around 1.2 billion euros. In 2020 it was only around 800 million euros.
“The main reason for the decline is the corona pandemic with its strict entry restrictions,” says Mariam Asefi, who took over the medical tourism research department at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences.
In the decade before the pandemic, the majority of foreign patients from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan came to Germany for medical treatment. And this market grew steadily. According to the H-BRS study, the number of stationary medical tourists from these three countries of origin fell by half in the pandemic year 2020 compared to the previous year (Russia minus 62 percent, Ukraine minus 24 percent, Kazakhstan minus 32 percent).
Asefi expects the number to continue to decline due to the war in Ukraine following the Russian attack. “However, it is difficult to predict how severe the decline will be in the long term,” says Asefi. “Russian patients continue to come to Germany for complex medical treatments. However, the effort and organization have become much more complicated.” However, there are no detailed figures for 2021 and 2022 yet. The university's study is based on its own surveys and data from the Federal Statistical Office. These are always only available with a delay of around one and a half years.
A total of 2020 patients from 177 countries traveled to Germany for medical treatment. In addition to Russia (more than 2,000), Ukraine (around 1,400) and Kazakhstan (more than 240), many medical tourists also came from Saudi Arabia (almost 500). From countries in the European Union, people from Poland (more than 10,400 inpatient admissions in 2020) and the Netherlands (more than 5,800) most often visited German clinics.
The most sought after patients from abroad in 2020 were German clinics in Bavaria (minus 40 percent) and North Rhine-Westphalia (minus 24 percent), despite significant declines compared to the previous year. Other federal states with a lot of medical tourism also recorded losses - both Saarland (minus 25 percent) as well as Hesse (minus 44 percent), Baden-Württemberg (minus 31 percent) and Berlin (minus 43 percent). In Berlin, the number of patients from abroad fell less sharply in percentage terms than the number of international tourists overall. This decline was 76.5 percent.
The reason for the decreased number of patients is not just the pandemic and the war. However, other influencing factors can also be attributed to this. “These include oil price developments, currency stability and real wage developments,” says Asefi. Strong motivations for treatment in Germany include, for example, a lack of treatment options in the home country or the good quality of the German healthcare system.