Berlin, 26 June 2025
This year’s Capital City Congress witnessed the presentation of the latest Hospital Rating Report.
The 21st in the series, the report highlights the grim situation hospitals are going through indicating that more than half of hospitals in Germany will be making losses in 2024.
Presenting the Report Titled ‘Emerging from the valley of tears in 2025’, the study co-author and health economist Professor Boris Augurzky from the Rhenish-Westphalian Institute for Economic Research (RWI) observed that ‘in 2024, 56 per cent of hospitals are likely to report a negative annual result, which marks a new high.’
According to Professor Augurzky, the average EBITDA margin will also be negative for the first time.
“The liquidity reserves of many facilities are also dangerously low: half of them only have enough funds for a maximum two weeks”, adding “this means that the economic situation is tighter than ever since the beginning of the time series.”
The reforms planned in the 2025 coalition agreement, such as a primary care system, an emergency reform or targeted financial aid, were welcomed by the authors of the Hospital Rating Report as initial steps.
The author’s of the Report noted however that, the reforms are not enough to close the looming funding gap and make the healthcare system fit for the future.
They observed that in the absence of a structural reforms, there is a risk of social security contributions rising to over 50 per cent by 2035, which, in their view, would have considerable consequences for employees, companies and Germany as a business location.
Professor Augurzky sees two levers to improve the situation, namely, increase productivity and reduce the number of cases, adding that this could be achieved through better patient management, clearly defined outpatient and inpatient care pathways, more authorisation for nursing staff, a nationwide rescue service and an acceleration law for hospital construction.
A ’healthcare Security Act’ is also proposed to improve crisis prevention.
Touching on effective patient management, Prof Augurzky said that ‘Complex needs require complex services, simple needs require simple services’, adding that without management, complex services are often utilised for simple needs.
The 21st Hospital Rating Report is based on a random sample of 442 annual financial statements from 2023 and a special analysis of 124 audited annual financial statements from 2024, covering a total of 888 hospitals.
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