Inflation noticeably impacted medical and psychotherapeutic practices in 2022

Wiesbadener Straße. What is obvious is now official: The inflationary year of 2022 has left anything but a mark on medical and psychotherapeutic practices. Today, Tuesday, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) published the latest figures on sales, costs and income of outpatient facilities (individual practices, BAG and MVZ).

According to this, the operational expenditure of German medical practices increased by an average of 11.0 percent in 2022 compared to the previous year to 466,000 euros; according to the information, general consumer prices rose by 6.9 percent in the same period. Of these, revenues per practice improved by only 5.3 percent to 796,000 euros. This results in a decline in net income per business – on average by 1.5 percent to 331,000 euros.

High-turnover companies draw the cut

These figures refer exclusively to individual practices, as well as professional associations and medical care centers with the same or interdisciplinary specialization. Destatis traditionally reports separate figures for dental practices and psychotherapy practices.

The average values ​​in outpatient human medicine are “strongly influenced by practices with very high income and earnings,” the authority emphasizes in its classification. A finding that has also been observed in previous years. In contrast, the average view for 2022 shows income of up to a maximum of 487,000 euros (previous year: 464,000 euros) and a net income of a maximum of 230,000 euros (previous year: 233,000 euros) for half of all medical practices.

The Wiesbaden authority recently registered 69,089 outpatient medical businesses nationwide (year: 67,446) with 95,665 owners (year: 95,100). This results in an average net income per owner of 239,047 euros (previous year: 238,295 euros). Overall, the annual gross income per owner remained statistically stable.

Psychotherapists lose even more

In the median view, however, it has improved slightly, as significantly fewer owners were counted here recently – namely only 37,835 compared to 40,121 in 2021 for practices with an annual turnover of up to 500,000 euros. In this group, the statistical per capita income before taxes and pension expenses was a maximum of 209,994 euros (previous year: 195,844 euros).

In 2022, the businesses of non-medical psychotherapists suffered even more than medical practices. Their costs rose by the same amount (by 11.1 percent), while income was only reduced by 0.8 percent to an average of 128,000 euros per facility. The bottom line is that the net income per psychotherapy practice fell by 3.3 percent to 88,000 euros.

The bill per psychotherapy owner: With 20,146 practices in the reporting year (2021: 21,117) and 21,001 owners (2021: 22,123), this results in an average annual gross per owner of 84,417 euros (2021: 86,861 euros).

Destatis enables a year-on-year comparison for the first time

As the methodology from Wiesbaden goes on to say, the cost structure statistics for medical and psychotherapeutic businesses are based on a representative sample survey of a maximum of seven percent of all practices nationwide. The result is extrapolated to the total of all practices. In 2021, this reporting was “switched to an annual periodicity”. Therefore, a direct comparison with the previous year is possible for the first time with the 2022 reporting year. (cw)