Belgian Health Care Market - Global Sales Mentor | Zach Selch

24 Apr 2020 · 2 min

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In this brief briefing Zach Selch outlines the key characteristics of the Belgian healthcare market. Belgium has about 11 million residents and a GDP of roughly $500 billion, translating to a per‑capita GDP of just under $50 K. Approximately 20 % of the population is over 65, creating an aging, relatively affluent demographic. The country operates a near‑universal social health insurance system modeled on the German approach: employees contribute 3.5 % of earnings and the government matches that 3.5 % to fund basic care. The system faces acute shortages of doctors and nurses, prompting a policy shift toward moving care out of hospitals and into homes or small clinics. Consequently, there is growing demand for home‑based diagnostic and therapeutic products targeting lifestyle‑related diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular, and pulmonary conditions. Selch concludes with a call‑to‑action for companies seeking to expand international sales in this market.

Chapters

Let's talk a little bit about the Belgian healthcare market. First, let's just take a quick look at the numbers. 11 million population, about $500 billion in GDP, which means about $50K, a little bit less than that, per capita GDP. Aging population, 20% of the population is over the age of 65. Virtually 100% of the population is insured through the government social Yeah. So they have a national social security fund which works a lot like the other European funds. I look at it like the German model. So what happens is everybody puts in 3.5%, the government matches that 3.5%, and that covers your basic care. What are— what's the market looking for? Well, essentially what they're trying to do is shift more and more of the care to home-based solutions, get people from spending too much time in the hospital. They have an aging population. They don't have a lot of doctors. They don't have a lot of nurses, that's going to keep getting as bad or worse. So what they're trying to do is diagnostic products, products that will help give care to the patients at home or at small clinics, those type of things. The diseases they're facing are things like lifestyle-based diseases, diabetes, pulmonary, cardio, those type of things that are dealing with an aging, healthy, but essentially, you know, not— Older population. Basically an aging affluent population. So those type of diseases— diabetes, cardio diseases, pulmonary diseases, those things. Remember, when you're ready to grow your international sales, reach out to us. We can help.
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