Two-class medicine has long been a reality in Austria – this is particularly reflected in the choice of doctor – if you want an appointment quickly, you usually have to call on a doctor of your choice. Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) now wants to counter this – and make an elective practice less appetizing for doctors.
More money should make this possible: As part of the financial settlement process, Rauch is trying to raise more money for outpatient medical care. In that context, it should become less attractive for doctors to go to the doctor’s practice, he said in the discussion series “Klartext” on ORF radio Ö1 on Wednesday. According to the minister, “patients should be able to access the system with an e-card, not a credit card”.
Compulsory electronic cash accounting soon?
For example, Rauch can envision setting a limit on the invoice or requiring the doctors of choice to invoice the health insurance part of the treatment electronically. The minister is also considering the obligation to use the ELGA electronic patient file and diagnostic coding.
Turning off the activity as a doctor of choice (where patients often receive only a small part of the fee back from the health insurance company) and allowing only panel doctors or purely private doctors, as panel officer Andreas Huss had suggested, he did not consider reasonable.
Patients “don’t give a damn” about billing health insurance rates
For Vienna City Councilor for Public Health Peter Hacker (SPÖ), it would also be conceivable to oblige every doctor who opens a practice to take on patients with statutory health insurance. Preconditions are needed in which doctors realize that they are part of the healthcare system. He doesn’t care in what form exactly this is implemented.
Hacker dismissed the objection of Bernhard Wurzer, director general of the Austrian health insurance fund (ÖGK), that only six percent of the health insurance fund’s fees go to the doctors of choice. “You bill so little that some patients don’t care to bill you,” he countered. Hacker once again pressed for states’ demands to introduce another federal funding channel for the hospitals’ overstretched outpatient clinics.
Rauch generally demands more money for health
In addition to “restricting elective medical practice,” Rauch cited other goals for the financial settlement. All in all, more money is needed in the health care sector, especially for the residential sector and care. And an upgrade of the medical-technical professions is necessary so that they can perform activities that are now reserved for doctors.
“You can take my word for it,” he told Karoline Riedler of the Austrian Health and Nursing Association (ÖGKV), who had requested this.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
