Nursing Home in Brandenburg Costs Care Recipients Around 300 Euros More per Month

The personal contribution is made up of the so-called uniform facility-wide personal contribution (EEE) for care as well as costs for accommodation, meals, and investments. The EEE is the same for all residents within a nursing home but differs from facility to facility.

Depending on length of stay, the long-term care insurance funds provide subsidies that reduce the total. However, these apply only to the EEE. In the first year, the subsidy is 15 percent; after the second year, it is 50 percent of the EEE. From the fourth year onward, care recipients receive a subsidy that brings the personal contribution down to 1,847 euros – provided the other components are disregarded.

Training and Wages as Price Drivers

The EEE also includes training costs for future care workers. This levy is a key driver of the higher care rates: a shortage of skilled workers and collectively agreed wage increases are directly reflected in the facility charges.

Nationwide Comparison: Saxony Follows Suit

The increase is also significant in other eastern German states. Nursing homes in Saxony cost on average almost 300 euros more per month than a year ago. Saxony is thus following the trend in Berlin and Brandenburg, where costs have also risen significantly.

How costs are developing in a nationwide comparison varies regionally. While some western German states still have higher personal contributions, the percentage increase in some eastern states is disproportionately high – a development attributed to the simultaneously growing demand for personnel and rising material costs.

What Is Left for Families?

What reasons lie behind the increase is existentially important for many of those affected. In addition to training costs, energy and food prices as well as investments in the building fabric play a role. Long-term care insurance funds and social welfare associations are therefore calling for greater relief from personal contributions through long-term care insurance.

For families, the increase means that the personal contribution for a nursing home place continues to rise – even though the long-term care insurance funds cushion part of the costs with their graduated subsidies. Anyone placing a relative in residential care must brace for additional costs of several hundred euros per month.

The Association of Substitute Health Insurance Funds also points out that subsidies for longer stays increase successively. Those who live in a nursing home for many years benefit disproportionately from the relief. Those who die early, however, or within the first two years, pay almost the full EEE plus ancillary costs.

Politically, the financing of long-term care remains a permanent issue. The discussion about reforming long-term care insurance, a higher federal subsidy, and a cap on personal contributions continues. Until then, care recipients and their relatives bear the cost increases directly.