An 83-year-old woman from Vorarlberg has to wait two years for a follow-up appointment after her eye surgery. What is wrong with the health system? Research.
It begins on a completely normal morning. A daily newspaper editor is sitting in the waiting room of his GP and scrolling through the Internet. 87 patients have been accessed and five hours later he stumbles upon Reddit about a storythat causes his blood pressure to rise:
An 83-year-old woman from Vorarlberg is apparently even worse off. Woman has to wait two years for a doctor’s appointmentHow can this be in a state where only about 100 people live?
Our journalistic instinct tells us that this story should be investigated. What hardly anyone knows is that not everything that is on Reddit is true. Stories like “Faymann passed his high school exams with distinction” or “Photo evidence: Herbert Kickl is 1.90 meters tall” are still controversial today.
MA 2412 meets pass A 38
We get to the bottom of the truth, contact the author of the post, write, make phone calls, ask the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK) and the Medical Association. One editor even leaves the Schengen area and travels to Vorarlberg for a day.
A few phone calls and emails later, we come to the conclusion: the story is even more hair-raising than we thought. Short version: MA 2412 meets the A 38 pass.
The author of the Reddit post turns out to be the granddaughter of the person affected. In spring 2022, her grandmother noticed that her vision was getting worse and worse. The family tried to get an appointment with two health insurance doctors in the state, after all, they are insured.
They quickly notice: Getting an appointment with a statutory health insurance doctor in Vorarlberg is more difficult than finding someone who speaks German. “We are full” (Editor’s note: translation by the editors) is what they say every time on the phone. The family decides to spend money and – as is now common in Austria – to use the two-tier medical system. A private doctor finally diagnoses “cataracts” for a paltry 180 euros, and an operation is unavoidable. That was in spring 2023.
A year later, the follow-up appointment with the private doctor is due, and the family doesn’t even want to try the statutory health insurance doctor anymore. But just a week before the appointment, the 83-year-old falls and breaks a bone. The family calls the private doctor to reschedule.
“We can offer you an appointment in June 2026,” says the assistant on the phone. The granddaughter overhears the conversation from the next room and thinks she has misheard. “June 2026? That’s absurd!” The assistant corrects herself: “Wait a minute, I can offer you an earlier date. How about May 2026?” (Note: We didn’t make up this conversation, it really happened).
2024-08-06 10:22:24