North Rhine-Westphalia: Private health insurance strengthens medical practices in rural areas
10.05.2022 11:55
Medical practices in North Rhine-Westphalia benefit disproportionately from treating privately insured people. A new study by the PKV shows why this will primarily strengthen medical care in rural areas, but also in structurally weak regions.
The PKV regional atlas for North Rhine-Westphalia quantifies the additional income of medical practices from privately insured people and breaks it down by region, city and district. These additional sales arise because there are fewer restrictions and usually higher fees for doctors when treating private patients than for statutory health insurance patients. Doctors’ practices can invest these additional funds in specialist staff or modern equipment. Your legally insured patients also benefit from this.
Up to over 85,000 euros additional per year per country doctor's office
In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, this additional private health insurance turnover amounts to 2.3 billion euros per year. This money primarily benefits doctors in rural areas and structurally weak regions. This is because those with private insurance there are usually older and are therefore treated more frequently. In addition, rents, salaries and other medical costs are higher in larger cities.
If these factors are taken into account, a medical practice in the economically strong Düsseldorf region achieves real additional sales of an average of 49,384 euros per year. In the structurally weak Duisburg-Essen region it is 54,579 euros and in the rural Hochsauerland district it is even 85,773 euros.
Nevertheless, the density of doctors in rural and structurally weak areas is lower than in metropolitan areas. For example, in the Hochsauerland district there are 152 medical practices per 100,000 inhabitants, and in the Duisburg-Essen region there are 161. For comparison: the Düsseldorf region has 218 practices. This shows that the lower number of doctors in rural areas cannot be due to the number of privately insured people. Other criteria are obviously decisive for doctors' location decisions.
The chairman of the PKV association, Ralf Kantak, explains the results of the regional atlas for North Rhine-Westphalia: “The data shows: Without the additional sales from private health insurance, medical care would be at risk, especially in rural areas and in the structurally weak Ruhr area. These locations would then be further weakened, because where there are no specialists or pediatricians, young specialists and their families will not move there - and companies are threatened with a shortage of young talent.