2023-07-19 11:00:18
During a teleconsultation, in Paris, May 8, 2020. CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT / AFP
“Stay vigilant”, « clarifier »… The recommendations of the flash mission relating to “teleconsultations by subscription”, made public before the Social Affairs Committee of the National Assembly on Wednesday July 19, remain cautious. They highlight a phenomenon with still vague contours, but which is worrying as access to care is deteriorating in many territories: the paid subscription offers offered by certain private health players to access doctors remotely.
Launched in June, this parliamentary mission, of which the deputies Stéphanie Rist (Renaissance, Loiret) and Pierre Dharréville (Communist Party, Bouches-du-Rhône) are co-rapporteurs, intervenes in the wake of the controversy around the subscription offer of Ramsay Health. “11.90 euros per month” for accessible medical teleconsultations « 24 h/24 » et « 7 j/7 » : the product displayed by the private hospital group caused a strong reaction in the medical community. The National Council of the Order of Physicians was moved by a “initiative contrary to medical ethics”, « hand over[ant] calling into question the French health model based on solidarity and free care”when the Minister of Health, François Braun assured that “two-tier medicine is not a solution for access to health”.
After conducting a cycle of hearings with teleconsultation companies, representatives of doctors, health insurance, mutuals… the two deputies are trying to draw the boundaries between different practices. “The health crisis has led to a spectacular rise in the use of teleconsultations”, they recall, increased from 80,000 in 2019 to 13.5 million in 2020. There are now one million teleconsultations that are billed each month to Medicare; they represented 1.9% of the clinical and technical acts of independent doctors in 2022.
« Confusion »
Subscription plans like Ramsay’s come into play ” in parallel “ : “In return for a monthly fee, patients can access a certain number of teleconsultations not covered by compulsory health insurance “, underline the rapporteurs.
“The flexibility offered by this type of subscription maintains a certain confusion between what is more a matter of medical advice (teleconsultation), on the one hand, and a remote clinical examination (teleconsultation), on the other hand”, believe the rapporteurs. Their main proposition is thus: [d’]oblige teleconsultation platforms to clarify their offers” between these two types of services.
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