Prevention Report 2022: Health insurance companies are once again more committed to health promotion and prevention

The statutory health insurance funds stepped up their commitment to health promotion and prevention again in 2021 following the coronavirus-related restrictions. With a total of around 538 million euros, a wide range of projects in living environments, workplace health promotion measures and individual prevention courses were supported. According to the health insurance funds, the increase in expenditure was around 30 percent compared to the previous year. In addition, the long-term care insurance funds supported prevention activities in inpatient care facilities to the tune of 16 million euros. This is according to the latest prevention report from the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds and the Federal Medical Service.

The health insurance funds’ expenditure on workplace health promotion (WHP) totaled EUR 246,897,000 in the reporting year. Even after deducting the funds of EUR 36.4 million made available for joint measures of the regional BGF coordination centers in the federal states, expenditure increased by around 32 percent compared to 2020, according to the figures. BGF measures addressed 1,768,604 employees in 18,437 companies. In this area, the health insurance funds supported, for example, training to further develop a healthy management culture or health-promoting work design.

Compared to the previous year, expenditure on individual courses, for example in the area of exercise and stress management, fell slightly by six percent. The health insurance companies spent a total of 143,272,215 euros on this and supported 796,595 participants. Despite the possibility of taking part in online courses since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the number of participants and therefore also expenditure has declined since the 2020 reporting year, according to the report.

More information can be found on the website of the GKV-Spitzenverband.