ÖGK in need: Red alarm level with doctors because of a million hole!

ÖGK in need: Red alarm level with doctors because of a million hole!

The Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK) is faced with considerable financial grievances that have triggered the alarm at the Medical Association. In a current message, it is emphasized that constructive fee negotiations between the ÖGK and the medical associations have stalled, and there is a lack of clear conversations to clarify the situation. According to OTS calls for McDonald even the doctors on a solidarity contribution and warns of possible salary.

The observation is particularly critical that doctors who use modern diagnostic methods such as MRI or CT are under increased pressure. This shows a worrying trend in the health system, where the decline in health insurance doctors in Vienna has been 11% since 2012, while the population has increased by 16% at the same time. Many cash offices remain vacant, which leads to a massive emergency in health care.

Need for a new performance catalog

Another point of the current discussion is the development of a new performance catalog for the resident area. According to Medmedia , the need for a contemporary catalog has been talked about for a long time. A corresponding proposal was submitted by the Medical Association to improve the quality of medical care, especially for chronically ill patients. The new catalog comprises about 150 pages and is intended to map all medical services. However, Corona pandemic caused delays in this process.

The ÖGK criticizes the delays and emphasizes that the previous regionally different service catalogs are out of date. The plan of the ÖGK provides, among other things, a flat -rate system for honoring, which is intended to reduce the dependence on the number of patients. This initiative, according to Peter Lehner, chairman of the conference of the social security institutions, was received positively.

Financial security and fee system

The current fee of the doctors is made up of amounts for individual services and flat rates, which offers doctors financial and predictability. The average sales per contract doctor point is different, depending on the subject. The turnover for general practitioners is around 327,000 euros, while 449,000 euros are recorded ().