Treatment costs for corona intensive care patients: In the worst cases up to 92,000 euros

Created: 01/07/2022Updated: 01/07/2022, 3:59 PM

From: Franziska Kaindl

The corona pandemic is causing a high utilization of intensive care beds.

© Christoph Reichwein / Imago

Due to the corona pandemic, many intensive care units in Germany are overloaded.

The treatment of Covid patients entails high costs.

There are currently 3,348 Covid-19 patients in intensive care across Germany, as reported by DIVI (German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine) (as of January 7).

Not only doctors and nurses are overburdened due to this situation - treating a corona patient * also costs a lot of money.

How much it really is has recently been recorded by health insurance companies and the Thuringia regional health association.

197 patients are currently being treated for Covid-19 in the state.

Corona cases in intensive care units: Up to 33,000 euros per patient

For the care of a single corona patient,

are regularly incurred . According to a report by the German Press Agency, it was around 1,500 to 3,000 euros a day, as Andreas Weichert, Head of Hospital Financing at the State Hospital Society, explained. The average length of stay of Covid 19 patients was estimated by intensive care physicians to be two to three weeks. According to information from AOK and Barmer,

. For patients who do not have to be ventilated, however, it is an average of 8,000 euros.

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Corona treatment: why are the costs so high?

How high the costs actually are depends on the course of the

. However, they are usually higher than for other intensive care patients, as Weichert explains: "The cost of treating seriously ill corona patients is significantly higher than, for example, the cost of oncological patients or caring for accident victims." The background is that there are a lot of staff need to lay a patient from his back onto his stomach. In addition, nurses and doctors would have to take more protective measures to protect themselves from infection. Artificial ventilation for patients in particular drives up costs.

“The deviations can be considerable in individual cases.

The ten percent of patients requiring ventilation have the highest costs with over 77,000 euros ,

”an AOK spokeswoman told

For patients who have received treatment with an “artificial lung” (ECMO), the

.

In the evaluation of the Scientific Institute of the AOK (WIdO), the data from a total of 182,000 corona cases were included in the period from March 1, 2020 to May 31, 2021.

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Discussion about higher health insurance contributions for unvaccinated people

Meanwhile, the Bavarian Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) advocates

. The mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer (Greens), also spoke out in favor of this, according to the

: "I am expressly in favor of increasing the cash contributions if someone who could be vaccinated consciously refuses the injection." However, there is also

: "Although I am a clear advocate of compulsory vaccination for adults, now is not the time to think about possible penalties," said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) according to the

.

The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds also rejects the proposal: “One of the main pillars of statutory health insurance is the principle of solidarity.

This means that the amount of the contributions is based on the financial capacity of the insured person.

The entitlement to medical services, in turn, is independent of the respective contribution amount; they are based solely on medical necessity. ”