In Belgium, out-of-pocket healthcare costs are the highest in Europe, and hospital fee supplements are part of the reason.
On average, Belgians pay €1,176 per year out of pocket for healthcare, across all categories (hospital, outpatient care, pharmacy, and more). That is the highest per capita amount in the European Union, compared with an EU average of €542 (Eurostat, 2023).
Bluesquare is a Brussels-based company working in health information systems, epidemiological surveillance, and global health data analysis. We enjoy complex topics: we dug into fee supplements in Belgium to better understand what Belgian patients actually pay, and why.
By combining public sources (AIM, Mutualité Chrétienne, Belfius, RTBF, INAMI) with the AI features of OpenHEXA, our open-source data integration platform, we built an interactive visualization of hospital costs in Belgium, with a focus on these fee supplements.
What it shows: €1.60 billion was left to Belgian patients to pay in 2024, 48% of it in fee supplements. For the same childbirth in a private room, out-of-pocket costs can range from €1,346 to €3,692 depending on the hospital.
We also see regional variation: 93% of Walloon hospitals and 91% of Brussels hospitals allow supplements of 200% or more, compared with just 19% in Flanders.
What do you make of these differences? We welcome your feedback on the visualization in the comments of this post.
Access the full visualizations here: https://cout-hopitaux-belgique.openhexa.io/.
