Private Medicine for Patients with Health Insurance

Even if you only have normal health insurance, you can be treated as an inpatient at the Wiener Privatklinik for an additional charge.

Private medicine offers patients two major advantages: Firstly, a free choice of doctor. And secondly, significantly shorter waiting times than in the public sector. For elective procedures, i.e. operations that are not acutely necessary, you sometimes have to wait months in public hospitals – for example in the field of orthopaedics. In a private hospital such as the Wiener Privatklinik (WPK), this is much quicker.

Costs are easy to calculate

Patients who are only insured with a normal Austrian health insurance company and do not have supplementary insurance can also benefit from the advantages of private medicine: as so-called “special class payers”, patients can be treated at the WPK as if they had private supplementary insurance. “In contrast to a pure self-payer who has no Austrian social insurance, the costs for a “special class payer” can be calculated very well in advance,” emphasizes Dipl. KHBW. Peter Sloup, Administrative Director of the WPK. No matter what treatment the patient undergoes:

All medication or medical consumables and other materials used in the operating theater are covered by the patient’s social insurance as a lump sum. The patient is only charged fixed daily rates for the operating theater and room, which also include where all care and meals are included. Everything else is settled directly via a direct settlement agreement between the WPK and the respective social insurance company.

The patient does not have to make any advance payments for these directly invoiced amounts, nor does he or she have to make any effort to submit them. This means that even patients who do not have supplementary insurance can benefit from the advantages of a private clinic: free choice of doctor and very quick surgery appointments. Orthopaedic patients in particular, who already suffer from pronounced pain symptoms, appreciate these advantages and make use of this option.

Even for minor procedures

The fee that the patient also pays to their trusted doctor can be freely agreed. However, doctors generally base their fees on the usual special class fees. The relevant recommendations are available to everyone on the website of the Vienna Medical Association.