Make the cash register system more attractive and expand it to shorten waiting times for our youngest customers!
Vienna (OTS) – The Medical Association of Vienna supports the call of the platform “#besserbehandelt.at” to finally expand statutory health insurance coverage for children and young people in Austria: “Our current waiting time study by Peter Hajek has shown clearly that there are major gaps in the care of children and young people in the statutory health insurance system. In the area of child and adolescent psychiatry, people in Vienna wait an average of 90 days for a statutory health insurance appointment, which is intolerable and alarming. More than half of the statutory health insurance physicians for pediatrics and adolescent medicine in the federal capital can no longer accept new patients due to the enormous workload. The reason for this is the years of bleeding out of the statutory health insurance system. ÖGK Chairman Andreas Huss must finally take on responsibility to massively reduce waiting times for young patients. We are calling for a rapid expansion of statutory health insurance coverage for our youngest,” says Johannes SteinhartPresident of the Austrian and Viennese Medical Association.
Naghme Kamaleyan SchmiedVice President and Chair of the General Practitioners in the Medical Association of Vienna, criticizes the fact that there are far too few statutory health insurance positions: “The best possible medical care is a human right. In Vienna, however, there are only 14 statutory health insurance positions in child and adolescent psychiatry for the entire population, although the need has been huge, especially since the pandemic. The reason for this is that the system has been cutting costs for years and the city and social insurance needs assessment for statutory health insurance positions is still based on figures from 2016. Fast, local care in the field of pediatrics and adolescent medicine is often no longer guaranteed. We know of cases where parents have to travel 1.5 hours with their small children to get to the pediatrician’s office. We are calling for a rapid increase in the number of statutory health insurance positions and an annual update of the needs assessment of statutory health insurance positions in order to finally meet the actual need, guarantee local care and shorten waiting times.”
In addition, there is an urgent need to make health insurance positions more attractive in order to attract more doctors: “Despite a starting bonus of €100,000, no applicants were found for two positions in the field of pediatrics and adolescent medicine in Vienna. Instead of threatening to force people to do so, additional measures are urgently needed, such as more flexible and modern working models – morning appointments, for example -, support in the start-up process, a fair catalogue of services that rewards consultation time, and less bureaucracy in order to get more doctors interested in the solidarity-based system,” Kamaleyan-Schmied concluded.
Inquiries & Contact:
Adrian Hinterreither
+43 664 9619179
hinterreither@aekwien.at
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