A current OECD report on health reform trends in the EU prompted Health Minister Korinna Schumann and State Secretary Ulrike Königsberger-Ludwig (both SPÖ) on Thursday to signal upcoming improvements in healthcare provision. As already shown in “Health at a Glance” in November, the new report again finds that Austria’s system offers good care but suffers from long waiting times and high private costs.
According to the OECD’s “Country Health Profile Austria 2025,” Austria recorded the second-highest per-capita health expenditures in the EU at 4,901 euros (as of 2023). However, only 76.6 percent of this is publicly funded, compared to an EU average of 80 percent. Private supplementary insurance accounts for seven percent of spending. The OECD warns that this raises concerns about a two-tier healthcare system when patients must choose between long waiting times or higher out-of-pocket costs for faster treatment.
Response from the Health Minister
Schumann interpreted the report as a diagnosis of the healthcare system as it was when the government took office in March. This status, she said in a written statement, is not something the government intends to accept. Königsberger-Ludwig reaffirmed the government’s commitment to further developing the system, including through increased digitalization and expanded prevention efforts. Both pointed to the “Health Reform Partnership,” in which the federal government, the provinces, and the social insurance providers are developing structural reforms. They did not comment on whether responsibility for hospitals should be centralized under the federal government, as has been repeatedly demanded.
They did, however, highlight the reform group established for emergency care and the Health Reform Fund, which will take effect in January 2026 and will be endowed with around 500 million euros annually. They also pointed to upcoming requirements for outpatient diagnostic coding, the digital parent-child health record, the extension of the ELGA storage period from ten to 30 years, and the expansion of the health hotline 1450.
