Lower Austria backs Vienna’s direct billing plan for hospital patients

Lower Austria is open to Vienna’s proposal to bill the federal states directly for patients treated outside their home state, ORF reported. But Lower Austria’s health councillor, Anton Kasser, said the system would require clear rules and a renegotiation of the fiscal equalisation agreement.

Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig proposed the model on Tuesday as a quick solution after other states rejected his repeated calls for regional healthcare networks. Under the plan, the lump-sum system would first be abolished. Each state would receive healthcare funding for its own population based on population figures, with the costs then settled directly between the states at the end of the year.

The state where a patient lives would pay the state where the patient was treated. Ludwig said the system would probably be relatively easy to administer and that Vienna was prepared to treat patients from other states. He said most of the disputes involved Lower Austria, which accounts for the majority of the affected patients.

Lower Austria demands fair financing

Lower Austria currently forgoes around 500 million euros from the fiscal equalisation system so that its patients can receive treatment in other states, Kasser said. Under direct billing, that money would have to be made available to Lower Austria.

Kasser said the money would have to follow the service, but warned that Vienna’s significantly higher costs could not automatically be used as the benchmark for the whole of Austria. He said the details of a fair billing system still needed to be negotiated.

Lower Austria could support Ludwig’s proposal as part of a new fiscal equalisation agreement. Until then, existing agreements and contracts would remain in force, Kasser said.

He also called for a reliable interim solution for Lower Austrian patients who are currently being turned away from hospitals in Vienna. Kasser said “good and constructive talks” were under way with Vienna’s health councillor, Peter Hacker. The shared goal, he said, should be to ensure that patients receive the medical care they need regardless of where they live.

Health minister welcomes proposal

Health Minister Korinna Schumann welcomed the plan, saying the financing of patients treated outside their home state needed clear and reliable rules. She said direct billing between the states was “quite conceivable” and that the health financing company to be created as part of the healthcare reform could provide a suitable framework.

The dispute over such patients also includes a lawsuit supported by Lower Austria. The Commercial Court rejected the case against Speising Hospital, which belongs to the Vinzenz Group and is funded by the Vienna Health Fund, at the end of July. The plaintiff’s lawyer appealed, and Kasser said Lower Austria would support the appeal.