The year 2025 brings its share of difficulties for Austrian dental patients: initially, there will be no replacement for amalgam, which is then banned as a dental filling material fully covered by health insurance. The reason is the refusal to negotiate on the part of the Dental Association. The Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK) will now try to conclude separate contracts with individual dentists, its president Andreas Huss said in the Ö1 “Mittagsjournal” on Friday.

The fund was reportedly willing to pay 20 percent more than before for amalgam-free fillings, promoting the relatively new white material Alkasit being tested in insurance clinics. The Dental Association, on the other hand, wants to accept only the technically inferior glass ionomer cement as free for patients, everything else should be a private service from the point of view of professional representation. The association left ÖGK’s offers for further negotiations unanswered.

Huss was annoyed by this association. “The Dental Association has really let time pass, it is not responsible,” he said in the “Mittagsjournal”. The fund therefore uses the possibility, which has existed since the last financial equalization, of offering dentists individual contracts, bypassing the association, with a 20 percent increase for fillings.

All eleven private dental clinics in Austria have already accepted this offer, the ÖGK told the APA. There will also be free delivery of the “new good equipment” Alkasit to the 61 centers owned by the insurance, Mr Huss said. The new tariff should also benefit practicing dentists, he said, referring to a similar situation in Germany. Therefore, according to the ÖGK president: “I am almost sure that many dentists will participate.”

Anyone who has a filling done by a dentist who refuses the offer will, however, have to advance the fees from next year. According to the ÖGK, the amount of reimbursement from the fund, which the patient can then claim, is not yet defined in the statutes.

The president of the Dental Association, Birgit Vetter-Scheidl, justified this refusal in the “Mittagsjournal”. According to her, it would be particularly unreasonable to expect younger colleagues to work at rates that no longer cover costs. The association therefore wants modifications to the overall contract and the price list. However, there is no negotiation date on this yet.

This article has been machine translated, read the original article here.