The Court of Auditors (RH) released a report on Friday, acknowledging progress in Austria’s medical rehabilitation system, but highlighting areas for further improvement. The system, it noted, should be better aligned with patient needs. For instance, while there has been a regionally differentiated offer for inpatient rehabilitation for children and adolescents, this has been delayed. The mental health sector, however, is almost twice as large as initially expected when planning began in 2010.
In 2022, approximately two-thirds (1,687 applications) for child and adolescent rehabilitation were in the Mental Health category. The RH also raised concerns about the lack of an annual cost assessment for children’s rehabilitation, urging that the need for services be recalculated as part of the Rehabilitation Plan 2025. The occupancy rate of rehabilitation beds for children and adolescents between 2018 and 2022 was only 59%, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and challenges parents faced in accompanying their children during treatment.
In 2022, Austria invested €1.077 billion in inpatient and outpatient medical rehabilitation procedures, with the majority (74%) funded by the Pension Insurance Association (PVA). The number of procedures under PVA funding tripled from 2003 to 2022.
Progress Since 2017, But Further Adjustments Needed
The RH noted improvements since its last review of medical rehabilitation in 2017. Since 2016, the PVA has been working to adjust the framework for medical rehabilitation. However, the RH emphasized that services should be even more closely aligned with patient needs. During the most recent RH review (2015-2022), rehabilitation remained largely standardized, with therapy time fixed at 1,800 minutes over three weeks per patient, regardless of specific needs. Variations occurred in only 3% of cases.
Additionally, the RH recommended that rehabilitation applications be submitted digitally in the future. While the PVA, in collaboration with the umbrella association of social insurance carriers, plans to implement a digital “cure and rehabilitation application,” the current paper-based process presents risks such as missing information, making it more difficult to select the most appropriate treatment facility.
