The new parent-child passport should come in 2024. At the same time, the recently flared up conflict between the medical association and the social security system due to the doctors’ view that the tariffs for mother-child passport examinations were too low will be resolved. He will give more money, the government announced on Wednesday.
The mother-child passport is almost 50 years old and has made a significant contribution to reducing infant mortality in Austria. Around 80,000 children are born in Austria every year, 50,000 of them are firstborns. The examinations prescribed in the mother-child passport are obligatory in order to receive the childcare allowance in full. In the future, these services will be expanded to include psychosocial counseling, another midwife consultation, an additional ultrasound examination and additional hearing screening for newborns. The offer of parental advice and nutritional and health advice will also be included, announced Minister for Women and Family Affairs Susanne Raab (ÖVP) and Minister of Health Johannes Rauch (Greens) in the press foyer after the Council of Ministers.
In addition, the passport will be digitized and the responsible ministries will be networked in their own system, added Digitization State Secretary Florian Tursky (ÖVP). A one-off amount of ten million euros from EU funds is earmarked for digitization. Work on this will start next year. With digitization, the documentation of the test results should be significantly improved. In this way, findings can be passed on more easily in electronic form between treating physicians and midwives.
Digitization also improves security in the event of loss of the passport. So far, the mother-child passport is only available in paper form in Austria. If it is lost, the results of investigations and consultations must be requested again. Multilingual information can also be offered to young parents more easily in digital form.
Future parent counseling is to be carried out by the 400 existing family counseling centers. They should include topics such as parental leave, maternity leave, childcare allowance, paternity leave, the effects of part-time work on pensions, pension splitting and returning to work. “I am pleased that we are expanding the free services that must be provided as part of the mother-child pass and are now presenting a modern and digitized parent-child pass. In addition to the services in the area of health care, we will introduce parent advice , which is intended to be a compass for the new phase of life for new parents,” says Raab.
The annual budget for the services of the mother-child pass is around 62 million euros. Two-thirds come from the Family Burdens Equalization Fund, one-third from social security. The expenses for the additional services depend on the use of advice and fee negotiations with the service providers. The decision of the Council of Ministers stipulates that the social insurance will conduct negotiations with the Medical Association.
The Federal Curia of resident doctors in the Medical Association recently passed a resolution according to which the termination of the mother-child pass as a health insurance benefit would be pronounced at the end of the year if there was no agreement on higher tariffs by then.
Rauch confirmed that there would be higher tariffs. He could not anticipate the negotiations, these are a matter for social security. But “an agreement will be reached,” said Rauch. He described the reform as a “big hit”. “We managed to get all interests and wishes under one roof and to invest significantly in the health of parents and children.”
Source: Nachrichten
