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Sometimes it takes a long time to decide on the legal basis to fight pandemics, but in some cases it is surprisingly fast: On Wednesday, the National Council will decide on corona tests in medical practices, which will be paid for by health insurers (at the expense of the federal government). they are paying. In the form of a flat fee, patient co-payments are prohibited by law. The federal government reimburses the funds from the Covid-19 crisis management fund funds.
The background: Until now, it has been customary, especially in Vienna, for suspected Covid patients to be examined at home by specially trained specialists so that medical orders do not become a breeding ground for infection. However, because there have been drastic delays in testing for a few weeks due to understaffing, the call for a test option at the doctor has recently been louder. The President of the Medical Association, Thomas Szekeres, and the Ministry of Health also supported this proposal.
But now there are criticisms from the medical profession: “It was already the case that many patients did not go to the ordination for fear of getting infected. This also includes people with diabetes or heart failure who need regular medical care. Now even more people will avoid going to the doctor, even if the tests for suspected corona cases are separated in time and space, ”says Angelika Reitböck, president of the Association of General Practitioners. Also, some arrangements are simply too small to create separate waiting rooms.
Added to this is the potential risk to the physician himself: “There is a certain risk of infection for the examiner,” says Reitböck. An absence of the family doctor related to the crown would mean that the care of the other patients would suffer. “And we are not yet equipped with such huge amounts of protective equipment,” the doctor tells KURIER. In this respect, tests carried out by the family doctor are conceivable at most on a voluntary basis.
In Vienna, some general practitioners wrote their concerns in a letter to the medical association, according to orf.at.
Only voluntarily
Thomas Szekeres, President of the Medical Association: “It is clear that, especially in Vienna, some colleagues do not have a large enough order to be able to perform the tests safely. But we have always said that they can only be done voluntarily ”, he told KURIER.
Reitböck is still not entirely convinced: “The delays are not so much due to the acceptance of the test itself, but to the logistics that begin after the smear test. It would be important to start here to be faster. “
“Hopefully there would be excitement. That is always the case when something new is announced, ”says Wolfgang Geppert, who was a general practitioner in Lower Austria until his retirement and was previously a spokesperson for the association of general practitioners.
In principle, however, it welcomes the possibility that clinicians with the necessary time and space infrastructure can perform corona tests on their patients. “Even if only a few hundred colleagues decide to do so, wait times at the other test facilities and on the 1450 service hotline will be significantly reduced,” he says.
Evenly
It is important that billing is simple and standardized, Geppert emphasizes: “The doctor must get the same amount for a test, regardless of whether he is in Bludenz or in a metropolitan area, whether he is a family doctor, pediatrician or otolaryngologist,” he emphasizes. And also: “If the rate is properly regulated, there will be a number of colleagues who will not say no.”
