The proposed settlement between health insurance and general practitioners proposes to increase the price of the consultation. Deeming the proposal negligible, GPs threaten to disagree.
To say it was met with skepticism by the profession would be an understatement. This Monday was unveiled the arbitration rules set up by senior civil servant Annick Morel, in order to put an end to the dispute between health insurance and doctors’ unions.
The latter plans to increase the price of a consultation with a general practitioner to 26.50 euros, against 25 currently.
Problem, in the face of galloping inflation and in order to make a profession neglected by students more attractive, GPs asked for a minimum of 30 euros per consultation, when they did not want its price to be doubled, to 50 euros.
Negotiations that had failed
“It’s a total insult. It doesn’t even catch up with inflation”, castigates on our antenna Jean-Paul Hamon, general practitioner and honorary president of the federation of doctors of France.
In February, the negotiations between the health insurance and the liberal doctors, aiming at the drafting of a new medical convention, had failed. An arbitrator had therefore been appointed, in the person of Annick Morel, to set the new rates.
The latter has chosen to take up the proposal for a general increase pushed by health insurance, but which has already been rejected by the profession. The Ministry of Health must, in all likelihood, accept these new tariffs.
“Me, I don’t care, I have my career behind me. But what I think is that we will never have successors”, fulminates Jean-Paul Hamon.
A tenth year of studies “without any incentive”
The increase in the price of the consultation requested by certain general practitioners is intended to meet two objectives. First, to deal with inflation, while improving the reception conditions for patients, with the hiring of a medical secretary.
Second, to make the profession more attractive to the younger generation, while the problem of medical deserts continues to worsen. For Jean-Paul Hamon, the low tariff increase announced “will aggravate desertification”.
Especially since the government has decided to vote for a tenth year for students in general medicine, to be carried out in medical deserts, “without any upgrading, without any incentive”, continues the general practitioner.
In order to make their voices heard, the profession is starting to think about a new means of pressure, detailed on BFMTV this Monday by Jérôme Marty, general practitioner and president of the French Union for Free Medicine.
“I’m leading the collective deconvention that we launched two months ago. We have 1,500 deconvention intentions. Our goal is to reach 10,000, 15,000 doctors, and to go see the politicians to tell them: ‘Here, we have 15,000 doctors who are ready to take the plunge. What are you doing for them?'”, he explains.
The Threat of Sector 3
As a reminder, in France, when a doctor is contracted with (sector 2) or without (sector 1) excess fees, the patient receives the same amount from social security, up to 70% of the convention rate. .
But when the doctor is not under agreement, and therefore operates in sector 3, he is free to freely set his prices. Consequently, social security reimburses patients only minimally. Without adequate mutual insurance, the rest to be paid for by the sick can be substantial.
“If we cannot build a convention that can save medicine, then we will do the famous sector 3. And it is health insurance that will take responsibility for reimbursing or not reimbursing its patients”, threatens Jérôme Marty.
Statement shared by Jean-Paul Hamon: “Frankly, there, this euro fifty, it is an additional insult. And I hope that the young doctors will launch movements of deconvention”.
But before taking action, the profession is waiting for the possible opening of new discussions. “The positive point is that Mrs. Annick Morel said that she had built her arbitration rules with the desire to relaunch conventional negotiations as quickly as possible”, hopes Jérôme Marty.
