Supplementary Health Insurance for Hospital Outpatient Treatment

The new Austrian catalogue of services for performance-based hospital financing has made outpatient procedures financially more attractive than inpatient treatments. Some new services have been included in the catalogue of services exclusively in outpatient form, and some services that were previously only defined as inpatient services have been converted to outpatient treatments. In contrast to the reforms in public hospital financing, the adjustment of the service catalogue for hospitals by private supplementary health insurance companies has been slow. The role of private supplementary health insurance in financing the Austrian healthcare system could be strengthened by including outpatient hospital treatment in the coverage of private supplementary health insurance.