NEWSROOM

The report card of the cost of health services provided by the state to the Social Security Institution (SSI) and General Health Insurance (GHI) expenditures was announced. ECONiX Research, which provides consultancy services in areas such as health economics, real life data analysis, medical information management and business development to private companies, universities and public institutions in Eastern Europe, Middle East, North Africa and West Asia countries with offices in the USA, Estonia, Tunisia and Turkey, has published the Turkey Public Health Insurance Expenditures Assessment Report 2023 on the SSI and GHI budgets in 2023.

TURKEY - The report, prepared with the research of Ayşe Nazlı Yıldırım and İrem Artaş and the consultancy of Ekin Begüm Özdemir, Öznur Seyhun and Dr. Güvenç Koçkaya, using the open data of SSI and Ministry of Treasury and Finance General Directorate of Accounting, revealed that the budget surplus of General Health Insurance of SSI in Turkey increased by 153% in 2023 compared to the previous year.

Budget surplus since 2015

The report analysed the SSI and GSS budgets, as well as the changes in hospital applications, application invoice amounts, number of prescriptions and prescription invoice amounts affecting the budgets, and evaluated the premiums collected within the scope of the SSI GSS and the health expenditures made from there. The report reminded that the SSI GHI had a budget deficit until 2015, and pointed out that the general health insurance gave a budget surplus every year after 2015. According to the report, while the budget surplus amount was recorded as 13 billion TL in 2021, this figure reached 42 billion TL in 2022 and 107 billion TL in 2023.

Sharing her evaluations on the subject, ECONiX Management Team Member Öznur Seyhun said, "The budget surplus amount in 2023 points to a 153% budget surplus compared to 2022. There may be multiple reasons for the GHI budget surplus trend, which has been increasing since 2015 and has even been the subject of academic studies. What is more important, especially in this period of fiscal discipline and tight monetary policy conditions, is to transfer this budget surplus to the right areas of the health economy and to use it with a focus on efficiency."

Hospital applications and number of prescriptions increased in 2023

In the report of ECONiX Research, which is known for its researches such as health inflation, production costs in the health sector, Turkey's most preferred medical faculties and regularly analyses SSI/GSS budgets every year, it was stated that there was an 8.3% increase in the number of hospital applications and a 4.83% increase in the number of prescriptions covered by the SSI last year.

ECONiX Research Management Team Member Öznur Seyhun stated that the effects of the trend of the disappearance of pandemic reservations like the previous year continue to be seen in the data in 2023, "It is seen that the most important part of the increase in the number of applications and prescriptions took place in January 2023. According to 2023 figures, the total number of applications covered by the SSI exceeded 606 million. In invoice amounts, an acceleration is noticeable as of August 2023. Prescription payments made by the SSI within the scope of public health insurance were recorded as 205.3 million TL in 2023. Despite the increase in both the number of applications and prescriptions, the Social Security Institution managed to achieve a record budget surplus this year."

Revenues 20 per cent more than expenditures

ECONiX Research Managing Partner Dr. Güvenç Koçkaya said that SGK has a surplus of 153.9 billion TL compared to its budget in 2023, while the budget surplus of SGK General Health Insurance is 107.9 billion TL, "We have determined that the total amount of premiums received by SGK within the scope of GSS in 2023 is 520.4 billion TL. However, the expenditure trends of SGK GSS indicate that the income is 20% higher than the expenditure. In terms of profit-loss balance, the profit-loss balance in 2023 is measured as 20.73%. This figure is very close to the record of 21.15% in 2020, the year of the pandemic. The SSI collected 29.18% more premiums in 2023 compared to 2022. In 2022, the cost per prescription increased by almost half (47.58%). In 2023, there is a rapid increase in the cost per prescription towards the end of the year."

ECONiX Management Team Member Dr Güvenç Koçkaya concluded his evaluations with the following statements: "As ECONiX Research, a research company that provides health economics analyses for private companies, public institutions and academic institutions, we believe that real life data is a very important basis for pharmaceutical, medical device and healthcare companies. In this context, we are working to ensure that the technology solutions we develop in our R&D office in Samsun can appeal to a wider audience in Eurasia, Europe, North America and the Middle East regions. This report, which we have created from open sources and enriched with expert comments, is published every year and constitutes an important reference in its field. We hope that our 2023 report will also be accessible to all stakeholders.