Medical analysis laboratories will “almost all” remain closed until Monday due to strike action

Biologists criticize the National Health Insurance Fund for having decided during the summer to reduce the prices of procedures by 9%, starting September 11, without consultation.

“Almost all medical biology laboratories will close,” warn the unions. They will keep “almost all” closed on Friday, September 20 until Monday, assure the seven representative organizations of the sector, including the SNMB and SDBIO for liberal biologists, or the SNBH, representing hospital biologists. “It will be massive,” they announce, very angry about the price reductions imposed on them by health insurance.

Biologists accuse the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM) of having “betrayed” a three-year conventional agreement (2024-2026) signed in June 2023, and to have decided during the summer, “without prior consultation” and in “the absence of government”, to reduce the prices of procedures by 9% from September 11.

While demand for biological analyses is significantly higher than expected in the first months of 2024 (+5.5% in volume), the Cnam intends to maintain the budget envelope planned for the year, which implies reducing certain prices. Enough to make biologists fear a loss of turnover.

In the absence of a serving health minister, biologists have little hope of seeing the rates corrected quickly. However, they are demanding “a reopening of negotiations”the restful agreement “on erroneous figures from the Cnam”said François Blanchecotte, president of the SDBIO, on Thursday. For the profession, the situation “endangers” local laboratories and risks causing closures of fragile sites, staff reductions or even reduced opening hours.

In a letter addressed to the unions at the end of August, the director of the Cnam Thomas Fatôme recalled that the number of laboratories and sampling sites had increased in recent months, from “of 4 266 early January 2023 at 4 421 by the end of May 2024”. The prices “will be called upon to be re-discussed” early 2025 in “function of the observed dynamics”, he wrote, not ruling out increases if “these were compatible, even necessary” to respect the envelope.