The number of bankruptcies among medical and nursing care providers in Japan reached a total of 478 in fiscal 2025, marking the highest level since 1988, when Japan¡¯s bubble economy peaked, according to a new report released Monday by credit reporting agency Tokyo Shoko Research.
The agency attributed the surge in bankruptcies mostly to staff shortages and rising costs. In Japan, prices that medical and nursing care providers can charge for their services are largely regulated by the government.
Tokyo Shoko Research¡¯s analysis included hospitals and clinics, dental offices, quarantine centers, nursing care providers and disability welfare service operators who went under with more than ?10 million ($63,800) in debt.
In 1990, the number of such bankruptcies stood at 32. But as the number of dental offices and medical institutions offering services outside the national health insurance systems increased over the years, so did the number of bankruptcies. In 2006, the number of bankruptcies reached 100 for the first time, according to Tokyo Shoko Research.
After that, bankruptcies among nursing care providers started to rise and went on to eclipse those involving medical institutions in 2016.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, generous government subsidies helped improve the finances of medical and nursing care providers, which led to the number of bankruptcies involving such entities plummeting.
But more of such institutions have seen their finances deteriorate since the end of the pandemic, with staff shortages and rising prices having emerged as major issues for many providers.
The government had included support for the medical and nursing care sectors in its supplementary budgets in recent years as part of its emergency economic measures. But the effectiveness of such measures has been called into doubt as a result of the record numbers of the last three consecutive years.
A total of 350 bankruptcies were recorded in fiscal 2023, followed by 436 in fiscal 2024, and finally, 478 in fiscal 2025.
Smaller operators with four or fewer employees made up 72.1% of the bankruptcies recorded in fiscal 2025.
¡°The government needs to beef up concrete assistance to service operators to improve their operational efficiency and reduce their burdens,¡± Tokyo Shoko Research said.
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