Tyrol doctors chamber challenges primary care funding ruling

Tyrol’s doctors chamber has filed a submission with Austria’s Federal Administrative Court over what it says is a lack of transparency in the funding of institutional operators of primary care units, ORF reported Tuesday.

Chamber President Stefan Kastner said the organisation could not see how much funding provider organisations receive. He called for the agreements between the operators and the Austrian Health Insurance Fund to be disclosed.

The chamber had previously submitted a request for information to the health insurance fund under Austria’s Freedom of Information Act. Tyrol chamber director Günter Atzl said the fund rejected the request, citing data protection reasons.

The chamber is now challenging that decision before the Federal Administrative Court. While the fees paid to doctors who operate a primary care unit are set out in a general agreement that is publicly available, agreements between institutional operators such as Diakonie and the health insurance fund are not, the chamber said.

Kastner said the chamber wanted to establish how much institutional operators receive to ensure that doctor led primary care units and traditional contracted doctors were not disadvantaged.

He said transparency should be standard for a model that is being strongly promoted by policymakers. Kastner also argued that family doctors were significantly disadvantaged compared with health centres. “Equal services must receive equal funding,” he said.