Closure of medical offices, “SOS Doctors” to absent subscribers, demonstration between the Ministry of Health and the Senate … Paris will experience a new day of mobilization, but unrelated to the pension reform.
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The liberal doctors are demanding increases in consultation rates and are opposed to a bill which will be precisely examined the same day by the senators. This movement shows above all the level of tension of the liberal practitioners on the verge of breaking with the Health Insurance and the government.
>> Strike of liberal doctors: the Minister of Health says he is ready to upgrade the consultation “as soon as the needs of the French are met”
We are two weeks away from the end of crucial negotiations for the profession and doctors believe they have been wronged. Health insurance proposes an increase of 1.5 euros for the basic consultation which would increase from 25 to 26.5 euros (25 euros frozen since 2017). A provocation for trade unions like MG France or the Confederation of French Medical Unions (CSMF) who expect no less than thirty euros for the basic consultation. For SOS Médecins, it is the price of the home consultation that must be revalued.
Downsizing
The liberal practitioners invoke the patients, more and more numerous in certain cities, who can no longer consult a simple family doctor who is in short supply. Others, overwhelmed, no longer take new patients. Not only the old ones “déplaquent” as we say in the trade, that is to say that the doctor who retires unscrews the plaque affixed to the outside of his cabinet. As for young people, there are too few of them to take over under current conditions. Finally, there is this law which passed the first reading in the National Assembly and which arrives Tuesday, February 14 before the Senate. If adopted, it would allow direct access – without prior prescription, therefore without going through the general practitioner – to certain paramedics such as physiotherapists and speech therapists.
Health insurance response
In an interview at Doctor’s Dailythe director general of the Cnam, Thomas Fatôme, promises that he “will go further” than what is currently on the table, but without saying more. In return, there will probably be a “territorial commitment” encouraging doctors to take on more patients and to provide more call duty on evenings and weekends. Suffice to say that the divorce is soon consummated between the doctors and their guardianship. With the hospital, it is another big project for the Minister of Health François Braun.
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