“Trouble Postponed” – Health Care Reform: Package announced for summer

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Too few panel doctors, overworked staff, long waiting times: the Austrian health system is groaning under long-delayed structural problems. Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) is working on a health care reform, but must first reach an agreement with the federal states as part of the financial equalization. Negotiations will continue until the autumn, but the government intends to take the first reform steps before then.

It is clear what the health system is suffering from. The number of panel doctors is stagnating, there is a general shortage of general practitioners in some regions and waiting lists for specialists are often ridiculously long. In addition, the nursing staff is often overloaded and there are bottlenecks in the supply of some medicines.

“Problems dragged on for 15 years”
According to Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP), there are “numerous structural problems that have been delayed for at least 15 years and have now come to a head”. Therefore, “rapid first steps” will be taken in the coming weeks, Health Minister Rauch added in the joint broadcast.

It announced additional job openings for panelists – there should be more than 100 this year – the expansion of primary care, increased supplies of key medicines, new digital offerings and improvements in psychosocial care. Not all points are new: as early as May 25, Nehammer announced that it wanted to create 100 additional positions for panel doctors.

The package of measures must be available before the summer
How this should be addressed is still an open question. In some rural regions, there are ample job openings for statutory health insurance physicians, but there are often no effective incentives to attract physicians there. Chancellor and Minister of Health want to present a package of measures “before the summer”. According to the plan, an amendment to the law intended to make the working environment for doctors in primary care more attractive will be submitted to the House of Representatives in June.

With further legislative initiatives, which the chancellor and the minister also want to present in June, the health system, which has “extended its limits in the past three years”, must be strengthened again after the pandemic, Minister Rauch stressed.

Source: Krone

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