Wagna hospital opens MRI scans to outpatient referrals
Monday 19th October 2026 on 12:00 in
Austria
The Wagna branch of LKH Südweststeiermark will offer MRI scans to publicly insured outpatients from November, with referrals from community-based doctors now accepted, ORF reports.
The scanner has been in operation since 2025, but until now it was used for hospital patients in Wagna and patients from the KAGes hospitals in Deutschlandsberg and Bad Radkersburg. The new service will extend access to outpatients covered by public health insurance. Appointments can already be booked.
About 1,000 MRI scans are performed in Wagna each year. The hospital expects to carry out up to 2,600 additional scans annually for patients referred from outside the hospital. The service will initially run as a pilot project until the end of 2027.
The scanner is scheduled to operate on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Wagna team will conduct the scans and prepare the reports, which will be made available through KAGes’s medical portal.
The cooperation involves the Austrian Health Insurance Fund, the Social Insurance for the Self-Employed and the Insurance Institution for Public-Sector Employees, Railways and Mining. Josef Harb, head of the Austrian Health Insurance Fund in Styria, said the partners aim to make the pilot permanent and improve the quality of referrals. He said about one-third of MRI referrals across Austria do not lead to a treatment change.