KOF Healthcare Expenditure Forecast: slightly lower growth this year
Healthcare expenditure will increase by 3.1 per cent in 2020, slightly less than last year (3.4 per cent). Expenditure is expected to increase more sharply in the next two years. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer services were provided in certain areas of healthcare. These are the findings of the KOF Healthcare Expenditure Forecast, which has been produced with the help of research funding from comparis.ch.
KOF is expecting healthcare expenditure to rise by 3.1 per cent this year. This is slightly lower growth than last year: in 2019 the increase was 3.4 per cent (forecast). In 2018 it was 0.8 per cent (definitive figure according to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office). Healthcare spending is expected to increase again in the next two years. KOF is forecasting a rise of 3.3 per cent for 2021 and an increase of 3.8 per cent for 2022.
Per-capita healthcare expenditure will amount to CHF 9,675 (2019), CHF 9,896 (2020), CHF 10,136 (2021) and CHF 10,431 (2022). The comparatively low growth in nominal gross domestic product (GDP) since earlier this year has caused a further increase in healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP. This healthcare expenditure ratio will rise from 11.2 per cent in 2018 to 12.5 per cent in 2022.
Fewer auxiliary services have been provided this year
Other outpatient service providers (including psychotherapists, physiotherapists, Spitex and social care professionals) and auxiliary service providers (especially medical laboratories) have always stood out because of their high growth rates in recent years. However, 2020 is an exception here: services in these categories have been provided less frequently this year owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the various funding regimes, compulsory health insurance is growing relatively strongly. The shift from inpatient to outpatient treatment is likely to continue.
Since the beginning of this year the pandemic and the restrictions associated with it have exerted a strong influence on the Swiss healthcare system. The pandemic represents an unprecedented situation, which is why its consequences cannot be estimated using past data. This increases the uncertainty of this forecast. The consequences of the pandemic are also not clear in terms of its total costs. For example, inpatient treatment of coronavirus-related conditions involves relatively high costs. In other areas, however, fewer interventions have been carried out than in previous years owing to the restrictions in place.
These effects are factored into the forecast by extrapolating monthly data for compulsory healthcare insurance (OKP) from the first half of 2020 to the current year as a whole and incorporating them into the model as explanatory variables. It is assumed that the healthcare system will be able to function more or less normally in the second half of 2020.
About the study
ETH Zurich’s KOF Swiss Economic Institute compiles and publishes a twice-yearly forecast of Switzerland’s healthcare spending. The spring forecast draws on research funding provided by the external pageSwiss Pharmacists' Association pharmaSuisse and the external pageAssociation of Groups of Independent Pharmacies (VGUA), while the autumn forecast receives financial support from the internet comparison service external pagecomparis.ch.