Pop-up clinics are set to open soon in Vienna’s 15th and 23rd districts, the Vienna Medical Association and Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK) have announced.

The plan is to encourage doctors to take over these clinics in the long run and make them permanent. For patients, the pop-up clinics, which will run for up to three years, offer the same services as regular practices, with standard opening hours and full health insurance coverage.

“We are trying something new, and we don’t yet know if it will work,” ÖGK Chairman Andreas Huss told a press conference in Vienna on Tuesday.

Naghme Kamaleyan-Schmied, Chairwoman of the Curia of Registered Doctors at the Vienna Medical Association, described the model as a much-needed “gap filler.”

Currently, 122 permanent health insurance clinics are being established in Vienna. However, with the city’s growing population and the goal of shifting more patients from hospital outpatient clinics to private practices, there will undoubtedly be a need for more clinics, officials said.