2023-04-24 12:41:12
Posted Apr 24, 2023, 11:52 AMUpdated on Apr 24, 2023 at 12:41 PM
General practitioners are now fixed. The price of medical consultations will increase by 1.50 euros in the fall. The “basic” consultation will thus be charged 26.50 euros to the general practitioner, against 25 currently. It will increase to 31.50 euros for specialists, according to the “arbitral settlement” presented on Monday to the unions of liberal doctors.
Two months after the failure of negotiations with Medicare, the latter had an appointment with Annick Morel, former inspector of social affairs appointed to arbitrate the case. The revaluations will come into force “at the end of a period of six months”, ie at the end of October at the earliest. They should be accepted “in the coming days” by the Minister of Health, François Braun, for whom the text includes “significant advances for the improvement of the health of the French”.
600 million euros
Last this minimum increase: the hope of pushing for a “rapid resumption” of the discussions. The senior civil servant has chosen to resume as is this general increase proposed at the beginning of the year by Social Security, for a cost of 600 million euros in a full year. At the end of February, the practitioners had refused this proposal en bloc, which they considered too low. They demanded a minimum of 30 euros for the consultation of a general practitioner.
If they want more, they will have to get back to the table, assumes, this Monday, the arbitrator, who wanted to “make a transition towards a rapid resumption of negotiations”, following the precept that “a negotiated agreement is better than ‘an administered regulation’.
This winter, practitioners had braced themselves against the logic of a “territorial commitment contract”, conditioning higher levels of remuneration on additional missions. They should therefore have agreed to take on more patients, do night shifts, exercise in a medical desert, work on Saturday mornings… These measures were in particular levers put forward by the government to fight against medical deserts.
Financial aid and incentives
“No revaluation subject to a territorial commitment” has this time been retained. Annick Morel, however, drafted several measures dear to the executive. To “free up medical time”, financial aid for the recruitment of medical assistants will thus be “broadened and made more flexible”. Emmanuel Macron has set a target of 10,000 jobs at the end of 2024, against just over 4,300 to date.
This decision will apply immediately, as will the creation of a new consultation at 60 euros for the acceptance of a chronic patient without a doctor. Here too, the Head of State promised that the 700,000 people in this situation would be “offered a treating doctor before the end of the year”.
No time limit either for the “response to urgent and unscheduled care”. The arbitrator chose to “perpetuate” the incentives intended for liberals who participate in the telephone “regulation” of Samu (100 euros per hour) and to receive patients within 48 hours (increase of 15 euros). Two key points of the “flash mission” that François Braun implemented upon his arrival in the summer of 2022.
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