OVERVIEW OF DENMARK’S NATIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

Population Insurance Coverage For A Core Set Of Healthcare Services (%) (2019):
Public Coverage: 100%; Primary Private Health Coverage: %; Total: 100%

Note: “Population coverage for health care is defined here as the share of the population eligible for a core set of health care services – whether through public programmes or primary private health insurance. The set of services is country-specific but usually includes consultations with doctors, tests and examinations, and hospital care. Public coverage includes both national health systems and social health insurance. On national health systems, most of the financing comes from general taxation, whereas in social health insurance systems, financing typically comes from a combination of payroll contributions and taxation. Financing is linked to ability-to-pay. Primary private health insurance refers to insurance coverage for a core set of services, and can be voluntary or mandatory by law (for some or all of the population.”)”

Source: OECD (2021), Health at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ae3016b9-en.

Annual household out-of-pocket payment, current USD per capita (2019): $851

Source: Global Health Expenditure Database. Health expenditure series. Geneva: World Health Organization. Last accessed April 7, 2022.

“The Danish health system is largely tax funded with decentralised organisation. The national government leads on regulation, supervision, some planning and quality monitoring, while the five regions are responsible for defining and planning delivery of health services. The municipalities are responsible for health promotion, disease prevention, rehabilitation, home care and long-term care.

“Overall planning and regulation have gradually been centralised to the national level. For example, as part of the 2007 administrative reforms, which saw the merging of regions and municipalities, the number of hospitals was halved. This was motivated by concerns that smaller hospitals were not able to provide high-quality specialty services. Results from the first decade indicate that hospital productivity has increased, while costs have remained stable (Christiansen & Vrangbaek, 2018). Centralised direction also played an important role in the response to COVID-19 (Box 1).”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2021), Denmark: Country Health Profile 2021, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

“Regional authorities are responsible for organisation and delivery of health care services in Denmark. People are generally required to register with a GP, who provides primary care and plays a gatekeeping role for access to hospital and most specialist care. GPs are predominantly self-employed, with 46 % in solo practices in 2019.

“Practically all hospital beds (94 %) are publicly owned and operated by the regions; the remainder are in smaller private specialty hospitals. Outpatient specialty care is delivered at hospital-based ambulatory clinics by doctors employed by public hospitals or by private self-employed specialists in privately owned facilities.”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2021), Denmark: Country Health Profile 2021, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

“The share of health spending financed out of pocket in Denmark is low, at just 14 % of total health spending in 2019 – slightly lower than the EU average of 15 %. No co-payments are required for primary care visits or inpatient hospital care, including medicines prescribed during the stay, or specialist visits referred by a general practitioner (GP). Co-payments apply to partly covered services including outpatient medicines, dental services and physiotherapy. Although subsidies exist for these services, approximately four in ten Danes purchase complementary health insurance to cover cost-sharing. In addition, nearly one third of Danes hold supplementary health insurance, which provides expanded access to private providers and elective services, most often as a fringe benefit offered by employers. However, voluntary health insurance (VHI) represents only 2.5 % of health spending (see Section 5.2).”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2021), Denmark: Country Health Profile 2021, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

“Publicly financed health coverage is universal and all primary and secondary health services are provided free of charge on referral. User charges are mainly applied to prescription medicines, dental care and glasses obtained out of hospital. Patients also pay for a number of other outpatient services, such as physiotherapy or psychological treatment. Waiting times for hospital treatment and access to private specialists have been a concern, but a waiting time guarantee of one month introduced in 2007 (now a diagnosis guarantee) has contributed to reducing waiting times.”

Source: Karsten Vrangbæk. “Denmark.” In Voluntary health insurance in Europe: Country experience [Internet]. Sagan A, Thomson S, editors. Copenhagen (Denmark): European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies; 2016. Observatory Studies Series, No. 42.

“With the exception of a few central state hospitals, health care in Denmark has been the responsibility of the towns and counties since the middle of the 18th century; consequently, there is a long tradition of decentralized administration in the health sector (see section 2.2). The 1970 reform of the public administrative structure, which reduced the number of counties from 24 to 14 and the number of municipalities from over 1300 to 275, led to both centralization and decentralization of responsibilities. While many state tasks were transferred to the counties, responsibility for the hospitals moved from local hospital boards to the county councils. Ironically, though, the state’s tendency to intervene in the administration of the health care sector has increased over time since this reform. Consequently, tension has been rising with regard to the counties’ autonomy. The 2007 reform allocated new tasks and responsibilities to both the state and the municipalities, and thereby involved a certain level of both centralization and decentralization, while reducing the role of the regions (see Chapter 6).”

Source: Olejaz M, Juul Nielsen A, Rudkjøbing A, Okkels Birk H, Krasnik A, Hernández-Quevedo C. Denmark: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2012, 14(2):1 – 192.

Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems in the US and sixteen other nations.

Page last updated May 14, 2022 by Doug McVay, Editor.