Federal government and ÖGK in focus

Long wait for a doctor’s appointment: Data missing!

Marco Triller from the Styrian FPÖ criticizes Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens).(Bild: Christof Birbaumer, Christian Jauschowetz, Krone KREATIV)

The federal government and ÖGK, as the central bodies responsible, have hardly any overview and little control over waiting times and admission stops at statutory health insurance physicians. Criticism of the "digital blind flight" comes first and foremost from the Styrian FPÖ. 

We last reported on this in March: Styrians have to wait up to a year for an appointment with a panel doctor. There is no relief in sight, on the contrary: in the next ten years, two out of three Styrian specialists will retire, and there is already a lack of adequate healthcare provision, especially in the peripheral regions.

29 thorny issues 
Reason enough for the FPÖ to ask Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) about data bases, guidelines for doctors regarding patient admission stops, etc. The answers to a total of 29 questions are now available to the "Krone", and some of the content is sobering.

Styrians currently have to wait up to a year for an appointment with a specialist.(Bild: RioPatuca Images - stock.adobe.com)

According to this, there is no regulation in social insurance law regarding waiting times. Neither the statutory social insurance nor the health department have any data on waiting times at all - accordingly, the political decision-makers have no means of dealing with this. There are no regulations that standardize maximum waiting times for check-up appointments for patients. According to the Ministry, the preferential treatment of private patients is "inadmissible". If the practice is nevertheless maintained in breach of contract, this constitutes grounds for terminating the contract.

FPÖ pushes for a package of measures
"In the age of digitalization, this is an indictment of all those responsible", comments the blue health spokesperson Marco Triller on the "blind flight of the federal government and ÖGK". "The fact is that more and more Styrians are not finding adequate and, above all, timely care from statutory health insurance physicians and are therefore having to resort to expensive elective and private doctors."

The FPÖ is urging for rapid "measures aimed at greater transparency and, above all, a noticeable reduction in waiting times for treatment by statutory health insurance physicians".

You can find the entire response to the inquiry here.