The very tense negotiations between unions of liberal doctors and Social Security on the future tariffs of consultations ended Thursday at the beginning of the evening and the unions will now consult their troops, we learned Thursday from concordant sources.
The negotiations on Wednesday and Thursday allowed “improvements on details, but the essential is unchanged”, regretted Agnès Giannotti, the president of MG France, the main representative union among general practitioners.
MG France will now carry out an internal consultation, with “a vote this weekend” and an announcement of the results of the vote on Sunday evening, she said.
Towards polls until March
The other unions will also hold consultations or consultations in the days or weeks to come. Corinne Le Sauder, president of the Federation of Doctors of France, said her organization would consult her troops after a general meeting on March 10 and 11.
“The Cnam only made marginal changes,” she regretted. “The bright red lines got clearer, but we didn’t go green,” she added.
The Cnam offers doctors a revaluation of 1.5 euros for all consultations, thus bringing the basic consultation of the general practitioner to 26.5 euros, an amount deemed insufficient by doctors (the consultation has been 25 euros since 2017).
It offers higher revaluations – 30 euros for the basic consultation of general practitioners, for example – for doctors who agree to make commitments to increase their care offer, to fight against medical desertification.
“Humiliating and infantilizing” commitments
Doctors must in particular commit to increasing their patient base, or to hiring a medical assistant to free them from administrative tasks.
Doctors consider it “humiliating and infantilizing” to have to make the various commitments demanded by the Cnam, explained Thursday morning Doctor Luc Duquesnel, who represents general practitioners within the CSMF union.
“The approximately 40% of general practitioners who already meet the criteria will refuse to sign this contract” for this reason, he explained. The six representative unions of doctors have in principle until next Tuesday to say whether or not they approve the future convention.
In the absence of agreement from at least one union, representing at least 30% of the votes in the last elections, the agreement cannot be adopted and the CNAM will rely on an arbitrator to write the future text. The arbitrator who has been appointed is Annick Morel, a former general inspector of social affairs.