Healthcare

How GPs can save the ailing system

Overcrowded outpatient clinics, a lack of panel doctors, frustrated patients. Basic healthcare is in danger. What can help? A community of doctors in Schwaz in Tyrol shows how it can perhaps work again.

The Austrian healthcare system is increasingly in trouble. This has been apparent for years. Now many screws are being turned. One is called primary care units (PCUs), in which doctors and other healthcare professionals provide patients with comprehensive care. The only problem is that PVEs are not getting off the ground everywhere in Austria. Especially not in Tyrol! After years of delay, there is now at least one in Innsbruck. Actually, there should already be six.

We have managed to ensure that patients always have a place to go, that night and weekend services are seamlessly regulated and that nursing homes and social services are well integrated.

Markus Angerer

Eleven GPs work together to provide care
In the Schwaz-Vomp-Stans region, eleven GPs have found a different way of working together. GPs have been working together there for around ten years on a voluntary - but binding - basis. "We have managed to ensure that patients always have a point of contact, that night and weekend services are seamlessly regulated and that nursing homes and social services are well integrated," summarizes Markus Angerer, Chairman of the doctors' network. When asked to name a key advantage over primary care centers, Angerer immediately mentions the word freedom: "There are no rigid guidelines from the health insurance fund as there are in the PVEs."

Markus Angerer in his practice. He is chairman of the doctors' network around Schwaz.(Bild: Claudia Thurner)

"100,000 euro start-up bonus only leads to envy debate"
Young doctors in particular would like this freedom. Angerer is convinced that this is also the root of the problem of a lack of panel doctors: "I'm a panel doctor myself. The system is basically good, but it needs to be reformed." For Angerer, the 100,000 euro start-up bonus recently approved by the federal government for panel doctors has no lasting effect: "It only triggers an envy debate." Instead, politicians should work to make the profession of general practitioner more attractive or allow rural doctors to keep their own practice dispensaries: "As a GP in a valley, you are often a lone fighter. This makes a family pharmacy all the more important as an incentive for the job."

A stricter system of referrals is needed again so that specialists and outpatient clinics are not overrun.

Markus Angerer

"GPs can direct the flow of patients"
For Angerer, GPs are the key to ensuring that care does not collapse: "GPs have the expertise to manage patient flows sensibly. A stricter system of referrals is needed again so that specialists and outpatient clinics are not overrun." Ultimately, this would also save money. Outpatient clinic fees also need to be considered. "Many people would certainly be prepared to pay if care then runs smoothly," the doctor is convinced.