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Austria’s COVID-19 National Policy
Expenditure On Retail Pharmaceuticals Per Capita In USD$ PPP, 2019:
Prescribed Medicines: $520
Over-The-Counter Medicines: $145
Total: $645
Source: OECD (2021), Health at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ae3016b9-en.
Expenditure On Retail Pharmaceuticals By Type Of Financing, 2019 (%)
Government/Compulsory Plans: 69%
Voluntary Health Insurance Plans: 1%
Out-Of-Pocket: 30%
Other: 0%
Source: OECD (2021), Health at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ae3016b9-en.
“Medicine shortages have increased in Austria in recent years, as has been the case in many other EU countries. About 700 notifications of medicines shortages were recorded between 2017 and 2019 – over three times more than in Germany. In April 2020, Austria put in place a mandatory national register – replacing a formerly voluntary register – to notify shortages, requiring at least two months’ notice for foreseen shortages. Shortages of a minimum duration of at least two weeks must be reported to the register (Vogler & Fischer 2020).
“Generic prescribing is an important driver to ensure affordable access to pharmaceuticals for the population and third-party payers. At 57 % of the total volume of medicines in 2019, the share of generics used in Austria was higher than the EU average of 49 %, but well below that of Germany (83 %) or the Netherlands (78 %). Generic substation by the pharmacists is not allowed. Moreover, doctors are not permitted to prescribe by International Non-proprietary Name, they always have to use the trade name (Gesundheit Österreich 2020). A prescription fee (currently EUR 6.30) is charged for all prescribed medications whose price exceeds the prescription fee, although the fee is capped if total prescription fees exceed 2 % of annual net income, and is waived for certain populations – including those who earn less than EUR 909 net per month (EUR 1,046 net for those with high medication needs) and those with notifiable communicable diseases.”
Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2021), Austria: Country Health Profile 2021, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.
“All insured individuals have free access to medicines included in the positive list of SHI [Social Health Insurance] reimbursable pharmaceuticals for use in the ambulatory (extramural) care sector, if prescribed by a physician. Physicians are allowed to freely prescribe medications listed in the green section of the positive list, which includes also OTC medicines. Other medications in the list (in the yellow section) require permission by a physician of the SHI fund or documentation to allow retrospective justification (Hofmarcher and Quentin, 2013) (see section 2.8.4).
“In 2018, the prescription fee per prescribed item amounted to €6.00 (HVB, 2018b) with all costs exceeding this amount covered by the SHI funds. For medicines with a gross reimbursement price below the prescription fee individuals pay the full price. No cost-sharing applies to pharmaceuticals provided in inpatient settings.
“Certain population groups (e.g. individuals with infectious disease, pensioners with a compensatory allowance) and individuals with a household income below certain thresholds are exempt from prescription fees (BMGF, 2017ar) (see section 3.4.1). The proportion of insured individuals exempt from prescription fees varies significantly across SHI funds. In 2016, the share of insured exempted from prescription fees was lowest in the regional SHI fund of Burgenland (2%) and highest in the regional SHI fund of Vienna (28%) (Wilbacher, 2018). Since 2008 a prescription fee cap of 2% of an individual’s annual net income has been in place, in particular to alleviate the burden of prescription costs for chronically ill people (BMGF, 2017ar). However, patients have to pay a minimum of €222 (for 37 prescriptions) before the 2% threshold applies. Despite these exemptions, prescription fees accounted for 6.4% of total out-of-pocket expenditures in Austria in 2015 (see Table 3.7). Patients admitted for inpatient treatment are not required to pay any additional costs for prescriptions.”
Source: Bachner F, Bobek J, Habimana K, Ladurner J, Lepuschütz L, Ostermann H, Rainer L, Schmidt A E, Zuba M, Quentin W, Winkelmann J. Austria: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2018; 20(3): 1 – 256.
“Medication consumption is measured in packets. In 2015, in total 240.7 million packages of prescribed and non-prescribed medicines were sold, of which about 90% (217.9 million packages) were dispensed in the ambulatory sector (Pharmig, 2017). About 49% of the packages sold (119 million) were financed by SHI funds, corresponding to 14 packages per insured person.
“Total expenditure on prescribed and non-prescribed medicines in the ambulatory sector accounted for €4 300 million in 2015, i.e. 12.4% of total current health expenditure and €504 per person, with 69.7% financed from public sources. While per capita spending on pharmaceuticals is above the OECD average, the share of pharmaceutical expenditure of current health expenditure is below the OECD-30 average of 15.7% (see section 7.2.1) (OECD, 2017d).
“The generics share of pharmaceutical sales is relatively low with 32.5% of the ambulatory reimbursement market in volume and 14.3% in value in 2015, partially owed to the fact that neither INN (International Nonproprietary Name) prescribing nor generic substitution is allowed. In the inpatient sector availability of data on prices and the generics share is limited, posing challenges for efforts towards more cost-efficiency (Panteli D et al., 2016; Zimmermann and Rainer, 2018). On a more positive note, the frequency of prescribed antibiotics in Austria (13.9 defined daily doses per 1 000 population per day) is below the OECD-30 average (21 defined daily doses per day) in 2016 (OECD, 2017b).”
Source: Bachner F, Bobek J, Habimana K, Ladurner J, Lepuschütz L, Ostermann H, Rainer L, Schmidt A E, Zuba M, Quentin W, Winkelmann J. Austria: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2018; 20(3): 1 – 256.
“Sickness funds finance covered outpatient medicines dispensed by community pharmacies and state governments finance medicines used in and dispensed by hospitals.
“The government does not set a budget for pharmaceutical spending at national or subnational level as part of the budgetary process. However,since 2013, the SSFs and the federal and state governments agree on a cap on annual growth in SSF public health expenditure in national planning agreements. These are based on the federal constitution and referred to as target-based governance agreements (“Zielsteuerungsverträge”). The national cap is disaggregated at the level of each SSF and state government, but not by function of care.”
Source: OECD (2019), Pharmaceutical Expenditure Tracking, Budgeting and Forecasting in 23 OECD and EU countries. Country Notes.
“While target-based governance agreements effectively set a cap on total health expenditure by SSFs [Statutory Sickness Funds] and state governments, no cap is defined specifically for pharmaceutical expenditure.”
Source: OECD (2019), Pharmaceutical Expenditure Tracking, Budgeting and Forecasting in 23 OECD and EU countries. Country Notes.
Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems in the US and sixteen other nations.
Page last updated Nov. 11, 2022 by Doug McVay, Editor.
