2023-11-19 22:45:51
If you believe Katharina Reich, Chief Medical Officer in the Ministry of Health, the health reform planned by her department, the states and the social security system can no longer be shaken. “The big package is in place,” she said on ORF’s “Im Zentrum” discussion program on Sunday evening. Details will be negotiated until the Council of Ministers on Wednesday.
The reform brings a far-reaching restriction on the power of the medical association when it comes to concluding overall contracts with the health insurance companies, the staffing plan or vetoes, for example over primary care centers or outpatient clinics. But other innovations are also planned, for example with regard to medication prescriptions, telemedicine and the ELGA health record.
The medical association is up in arms against the reform, has mobilized ten million euros for a counter-campaign and has repeatedly threatened a situation without a contract – which, however, would only come into effect long after the reform was passed and according to Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens), who met on Friday Chamber boss Johannes Steinhart met is already off the table anyway.
The Vienna Medical Association Vice President Stefan Ferenci saw the chamber’s resistance as reflecting his colleagues’ concerns about their health insurance practices. “When you are afraid, you take drastic measures,” he said in the discussion program. It would have been better to involve doctors in the reform.
Health economist Thomas Czypionka from the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) denied that the chamber would really be disempowered. Objectively speaking, this doesn’t happen on a very large scale. Rather, it’s about creating a balance between the medical association and social insurance, he said in the ORF’s ZiB2. The chamber currently has the upper hand.
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