2023-05-07 03:13:00
The social security system demands its involvement in the negotiations on health care reform, which are currently being conducted as part of the talks on financial equalization. Although the negotiations are already underway and Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) has announced this, it is still not clear whether social security will be one of the largest financiers at the table, complained the head of the umbrella organization Peter Lehner in an interview with the APA.
However, he does not consider financial equalization to be the right framework for talking regarding health care reform, because financial equalization is regarding budgets and responsibilities and not regarding a holistic, health policy perspective. For Lehner, a health care reform is “not a feat of strength in the context of financial equalization, but a continuous process that will never be completed. The health care system is constantly challenged by social changes, new requirements and medical progress. We need many steps to improve the system continuously adapting and further developing”, emphasized the chairman of the conference of social security institutions.
Lehner supports the Medical Association’s demand for 500 additional cash registers – he wants to raise the necessary funds by saving on social security funds for the hospitals. The social security funds currently pay a flat fee for the hospitals, but this depends on economic growth and thus increases every year, which means that they are now the largest payer for the hospitals. The head of the umbrella organization is now proposing to freeze these funds for the hospitals and use the money thus gained to finance the 500 additional panel doctors.
The head of the umbrella organization cannot do much with the demands of the federal states for a third financing pillar for the outpatient clinics, which the federal government should pay for because that would make the system even more complicated. And before the federal states demand more money as part of the financial equalization, they should first explain what they want to do with the money, Lehner called for more transparency. Clear competence and responsibilities would be necessary, emphasized the head of the umbrella organization, who had recently proposed shifting the competencies for the hospitals from the federal states to social security.
Lehner also believes that an expansion of preventive care and the “digital transformation” are important for the health care reform. For example, the doctors of choice would have to be integrated into the e-card and ELGA systems. In his opinion, it would also be important to encode diagnoses, which would eliminate the cumbersome task of opening PDF documents in the electronic health record for doctors. Lehner wants to set up and expand the health telephone 1450 uniformly nationwide for real control of patient flows. It is currently organized on a country-specific basis and is managed by the Red Cross in some federal states. In the future, patients should be given information on a phone call from anywhere in Austria regarding which symptoms they should go to where.
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