Lat the Mental Health Conference [organisées en septembre 2021], the psychological effects of the pandemic had been underlined. Since then, we know that these upheavals have led to an increase in anxious, anxious and depressed subjects. Their corollary is the need for psychological care, too often restricted to pharmacological treatments.
With the implementation of the “psy check” for students, the public authorities had begun to respond to this demand, which ranges from psychological assistance to psychotherapy, by promoting access to psychologists. At the end of these days, the Head of State wanted to go further by announcing the reimbursement by Medicare of psychologist consultations. This is now effective for all French people from the age of 3.
A true empowerment
While this measure has been awaited for decades, both by users and by the profession, it nevertheless arouses mistrust and even opposition from most psychologists. Far from being “a form of paradox”to use the formula then pronounced by President Macron, this opposition has its justification and its coherence.
Indeed, this coverage is provided under conditions: patients will be referred by medical prescription as part of a consultation packages. The first session is billed at 40 euros and the following at 30 euros each, all renewable the following year, if necessary.
This measure only resumes and extends the one which has been in experimentation since 2018 in certain departments and which had already aroused criticism from psychologists, who denounce not only the financial conditions imposed on them, but also the principles and the method of a such device.
For the record, let’s recall this device.
The psychologists concerned must first submit to specifications, provided by the Ministry of Health with the General Directorate of Health, and then commit to an agreement with the Primary Health Insurance Fund (CPAM) . These specifications provide for the obligation to go through specific training – a real qualification – and to strictly comply with the doctor’s prescription (the CPAM agreement specifies that the psychologist must not promote a “device of its own”).
A medical treatment like any other
The planned device consists of a series of stages, the first of which is the compulsory passage by the doctor, who, using questionnaires, evaluates the patient’s condition and classifies him from a score obtained on Numerical scales: mild, moderate or severe depression. It is on the basis of this classification grid that the doctor prescribes support psychotherapy or so-called “structured” psychotherapy to the patient and indicates to him the psychologist responding to the form of psychotherapy he has chosen.
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