Patient management will be one of the crucial issues of the near future and must therefore be addressed seriously and consensually.
Vienna (OTS) – The current discussion about methods of patient management is to be welcomed in principle, says Johannes Steinhart, President of the Austrian Medical Association, in response to the recent push by ÖGK employee chairman Andreas Huss to restrict visits to specialists via e-card blocking. “Patient management is an essential topic for the future of our health system and should therefore be discussed with the necessary seriousness on the one hand and, on the other hand, in a consensual manner with the representatives of the medical profession,” warns Steinhart.
Edgar Wutscher, Vice-President of the Austrian Medical Association and Chairman of the Federal Curia of Resident Doctors, is “astonished that ÖGK Vice-Chairman Huss prefers to get into the media first rather than sit down with us medical representatives.” Instead of striking quotes, it is the patients guilty of developing well thought out concepts.
Dietmar Bayer, deputy federal chairman of the resident doctors, also appeals to Huss to enter into joint discussions: “In the interest of the patients, we should strive for a common solution that is optimal for both the insured and the contracted doctors.” Quick fixes could seriously endanger the healthcare system. “Forcing people to go to the family doctor with such drastic and no-alternative measures would lead to a collapse due to the sudden overload of general practice,” warns Bayer.
Even for Harald Mayer, Vice President of the Austrian Medical Association and Federal Curia Chairman of the employed doctors, Huss’s proposal is still too half-baked. “For example, I miss solutions for people who rely on direct access to specialists, such as psychiatric patients. In addition, this measure does nothing to relieve the urgently needed burden on the outpatient clinics.” This also shows how indispensable it is to involve the service providers themselves in the considerations with their expertise. “In our view, patient routing above 1450 should urgently be considered in the interest of quality of care,” demands Mayer.
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