Note · Hospital financing

Hospital financing in 2027 and 2028

From 1 January 2027 Denmark has four regions, and the way hospitals are paid changes in steps. What is decided, what is not, and what finance teams can prepare now.

October 2026 · Christian Ulrich

What is decided

  • Four regions and 17 health councils from 1 January 2027. Region Hovedstaden and Region Sjælland become Region Østdanmark.
  • Municipal co-financing ends with 2026, and so does the local-care financing (nærhedsfinansiering). A transition that keeps cash flows neutral applies from 2027.
  • Tasks move from the municipalities to the regions, and the regions' state grant rises by 4.2 billion kroner (2025 prices) from 1 January 2027.
  • For 2027, regional health spending may be up to 156.3 billion kroner. The preliminary ceiling for hospital spending is 120.7 billion kroner, to be adjusted in spring 2027.

What is not decided yet

  • The new financing model for the regions. The government aims to settle it early in 2027, with effect from 2028.
  • Changes to the equalisation between regions, planned from 2029.

What it means for DRG and tariffs

DRG tariffs remain the common measure of hospital activity. Treatment of patients from another region is still settled at the tariffs in the yearly tariff system, which has 923 DRG groups in 2026.

With municipal co-financing gone, municipalities no longer receive an activity bill. How activity is steered becomes a matter inside each region, and the new model will decide how much of a region's income still follows its activity.

When the model is published, every region will want to know one thing first: what it does to its own income, on its own activity.

What to prepare now

  1. Rebuild your activity baseline on the new map: activity per hospital and DRG for 2025 and 2026, in the four-region structure.
  2. Separate the patient flows between regions, which are still settled at DRG tariffs.
  3. Make sure you can test model scenarios on your own activity as soon as the parameters are known.
  4. Check that cost data and tariffs line up, so the new budget split can be explained and defended.

Helios runs this kind of impact study on a region's own activity, and can have it ready shortly after the model is published.

Sources

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