Hi. Dear investors and analysts, a warm welcome to everybody who has dialed in today. Our CFO, Dr. Stefan Stranz, will begin today's call with the key aspects of 2022. Afterwards, I will take over and share with you our financial figures for both 9M and fiscal year 2021. Dr. Stranz will continue with our outlook for 2022. As always, we will close the conference call after a short Q&A session. Questions will be answered by Igor Levit, our Group Head of Accounting, Tax, Controlling, Finance and Investor Relations. Before we start, and according to the usual practice, I would like to draw your attention to the forward-looking statements and disclaimer wording on page two of our presentation. This safe harbor language applies to the presentation, our guidance and all comments to be made today. Again, I would like to mention that everything will be recorded.
With that, I hand it over to Dr. Stranz.
Welcome to everybody. I will begin with the change in the management board. The chairman of the management board of RHÖN, Dr. Christian Höftberger, asked the chairman of the supervisory board to terminate his appointment. The supervisory board then resolved to comply with this request. The supervisory board appointed Professor Dr. Tobias Kaltenbach as the new chairman of the management board of RHÖN. Moreover, the supervisory board decided to reduce the management board to three persons. Professor Dr. Bernd Griewing retires from the management board and continues to serve RHÖN as Chief Medical Officer. As of the November 1st, 2022, the management board is made up of Professor Dr. Tobias Kaltenbach, CEO, Dr. Stefan Stranz, CFO, and Gunther K. Weiß, COO. I will now move on to the report on the first nine months of financial year 2022.
The first nine months of financial year 2022 were marked by three significant developments: managing the COVID-19 pandemic, coping with the implications of the geopolitical impact resulting from the war in Ukraine, and negotiations with the federal state of Hessen on the grant of investment funding, as well as on further development of the separate accounting agreement at the University Hospital Gießen and Marburg. The COVID-19 pandemic results and continues to result in bottlenecks in services provided by hospitals, putting a corresponding burden on employees. In this regard, the volume of inpatient services, as with other hospitals, is below pre-pandemic levels. Although the phase of returning to normal has begun. It has taken much longer than originally anticipated. The ongoing war in Ukraine has disrupted supply chains and led, among other things, to a general rise in prices.
Throughout this challenge presented by price increases is affecting the daily business of our purchasers. These inflationary trends are not reflected in the current remuneration rules, nor has the German legislature yet announced a comprehensive compensation mechanism. While RHÖN is able to temporarily offset such discrepancies, thanks to the sound financial policy, many hospitals are threatened with insolvency if the framework conditions remain unchanged. Negotiations with the federal state of Hessen on the implementation of the letter of intent signed in January this year, relating to the grant of investment funding, as well as on further development of a separate accounting agreement, are still open. The negotiation parties take different views on several specific key points. The management board of RHÖN continues to be interested in reaching a successful agreement. I now hand it over to Julian Schmitt to go on with the financial figures.
Thank you. Let us continue with our key P&L figures. First, 9M 2022 and second fiscal year, 2021. 9M 2022, we generated revenues of EUR 1,067.3 million for the first nine months of fiscal year 2022. Hereby, revenues increased by 3.6% compared to the same period of the previous year. Revenues of the first nine months of fiscal year 2022 include EUR 56.2 million of income in connection with the COVID-19 legislation, which essentially relates to income from relief payments for bed capacities kept available. In the first nine months, our inpatient, semi-inpatient, and outpatient numbers increased by 1.4% to 641,622. EBITDA improved by 7.6% to EUR 76.5 million. Consolidated profit amounted to EUR 17.8 million.
Let me now bring the key figures of financial year 2021 back to your mind so that we can answer all the questions about it following this call. Fiscal year 2021. Despite the huge challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as declining earnings and reimbursements by the legislator in connection with COVID-19 legislation, we saw our key ratios rise as the number of patients treated on an inpatient, semi-inpatient, as well as outpatient basis increased by 4.6% in total in financial year 2021 compared with the previous year. With revenues up by EUR 41.9 million to approximately EUR 1.4 billion, we recorded an increase in EBITDA by EUR 21.0 million- EUR 101.2 million.
An increase in EBIT by EUR 19.9 million- EUR 30.5 million, as well as an increase in consolidated profit by EUR 27.7 million- EUR 30.2 million. That leads me to the next slide for today, our balance sheet as of 30 September 2022. When we look at our balance sheet, there is nothing new but stable figures to report. We continue to have a solid and sustainable balance sheet. Our equity ratio with 73% is among the highest within the industry. I will now give the word back to Dr. Stranz to go on with the financial outlook.
Thank you. We iterate our guidance. Hence, for 2022, we expect revenues of EUR 1.4 billion within a range of ±5%. For EBITDA, we expect a level of between EUR 92 million and EUR 102 million. Our guidance for 2022 is subject to considerable uncertainties in connection with the further course of the COVID-19 pandemic and any regulatory measures affecting the compensation structure in 2022. Thank you for listening so far. We are now happy to answer your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Mr. Oliver Metzger from Oddo BHF. Your question, please.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Two questions from my side, please. The first one is regarding the overall environment and the financing of hospitals in Germany. Mr. Lauterbach was quoted by having said that he wants to provide hospitals support in a magnitude of EUR 8 billion for next year. It's still not fixed yet, but did you think, given all this macroeconomic headwinds, the increased input costs, energy prices, that this financial relief which converts just as a simple average of around EUR 40 million per hospital, is it enough really to compensate this elevated input prices? That's number one. Number two is also with regards to the macroeconomic environment.
The pressure on the German hospital market seems to increase on the back of the minimum n-ratios which are introduced or which have been introduced and which will be introduced. Simultaneously costs increase. Do you expect that this indirect consolidation pressure that smaller hospitals go out of business will continue? In this context, do you expect also more external growth activities for you next year?
Hello, this is Igor speaking. Thank you for this question, Oliver.
Thank you.
For these questions. Let me start with the first one. First of all, we have not been involved into the calculation performed by the German Federal Minister of Health, honestly speaking. We do believe that the mentioned number of EUR 8 billion is not only for hospitals, but also for rehab institutions as well. This would mean that it's actually much less than EUR 40 million per hospital, which you've just quoted.
We can't tell how he calculated and whether his calculation was complete and accurate. It's not a straightforward question, so the answer will also not be straightforward. The only correct answer we can give you today is that the further development, it depends on two major topics. The first one is the COVID-19 pandemic. Its further development is unpredictable. If we have to reduce the number of planned treatments again, then this action will result in the reduction of our revenues. The amount mentioned, the EUR 8 billion, will definitely not be enough to cover all costs of the hospitals. The second topic is the inflation, which has been recently boosted by COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. To be honest with you, we can't really predict the level of inflation which will be on the market in the next.
Which will appear on the market in the next 12 months. Our prudent estimate, to be honest, is that EUR 8 billion will not be enough to cover all costs. Let me come to your second question now and first of all refer to what Dr. Stranz just mentioned. She mentioned that the current financial situation of many hospitals, as well as their ability to raise new capital, is extremely limited. Some of these hospitals could only survive in the past because they have been supported by the local authorities. Due to the current situation, the political players must now inevitably be much more restrictive in their use of available financial resources. This leads us to expect an increase in M&A activity. However, we have considerable doubts as to whether a new operator can be and should be found for every hospital. Thank you very much.
Okay, that was very helpful. Thank you very much, Igor.
There are no further questions at this time, and I hand back to you, Julian Schmitt.
Thank you very much for joining our today's call. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to get into contact with investor relations. We look forward to hear from you. Goodbye and take care.