Restoring employability: Rehabilitation for employment, earning capacity and participation
This article deals with rehabilitation in Austria, from the perspective of the Pension Insurance Institution. Rehabilitation has the aim of reintegrating people with chronic illnesses or after surgeries as permanently as possible into professional and social life.
According to the General Social Insurance Act (ASVG), the Pension Insurance Institution (PVA) has the legal mandate for rehabilitation in Austria, especially with its 17 own facilities, which are an important pillar of medical care in Austria. Privately run rehabilitation facilities also have contracts with the PVA in order to be able to guarantee sufficient rehabilitation places in Austria.
The aim of the PVA is to start targeted, participation-oriented rehabilitation measures as early as possible after an acute event, but also in the case of chronic illnesses. Unfortunately, this often fails due to the patients’ lack of knowledge about the possibility of rehabilitation, but also due to the lack of knowledge of the treating doctors and hospitals. Despite all efforts, information and educational work, applications for rehabilitation are not always submitted after heart attacks, strokes or surgeries. This means that the patients, some of whom are severely affected, are deprived of an effective and important measure to maintain their participation in life.
In public health policy discussions, much is said about acute hospitals, nursing care, the new Austrian Health Insurance Fund and the role of the Public Employment Service (AMS) in connection with health. Rehabilitation, however, hardly features in this discussion. The fact that personalised, targeted and early rehabilitation can prevent the path from an acute hospital to a care facility, or to unemployment after an illness, is hardly addressed.
