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Health: the government wants to facilitate access to specialist doctors
From June, patients will be able to go directly to a specialist doctor without first going through a healthcare professional.
(France 2)
From June, patients will be able to go directly to a specialist doctor without first going through a healthcare professional.
Between 30 and 40 patients every day at a Parisian general practitioner. It’s been a typical day for a doctor these past few months. But the government could authorize direct access to specialists without going through the generalist box. An eventuality which would amount to dispossessing the general practitioner of some of his patients. “A doctor follows up, makes a diagnosis and is the one who will explain to patients that such symptoms need to be seen by a specialist. Is it urgent or not…”deplores a doctor.
An experiment in June
“I think it’s very good because it would avoid going back to square one each time paying for a consultation to see someone competent”, explains a patient. This direct access reimbursed by health insurance already exists for certain specialties such as ophthalmology, pediatrics or even gynecology for example. But for most other specialties, if the patient does not first go through their treating physician, they are only reimbursed 30% instead of 70%. Direct access should be tested in several departments from June.
