Increase in reimbursement times, cumbersome administrative procedures, doctors claim that generalized third-party payment will penalize them. But to respond to the desire for free healthcare for the poorest, the Confederation of French Medical Unions (CSMF), the leading doctor’s union, has proposed to set up a new deferred payment system, the health card.
This card would allow the poorest patients not to give up seeking treatment and doctors to be paid quickly.
“You go to your doctor, you pay with the health card, with a credit card type terminal. The doctor is paid directly and very quickly. You are only debited when you are reimbursed by Social Security and by your complementary insurer, the mutual fund, ”explained to France 2 Jean-Paul Ortiz, of the Confederacy. ©ration of French medical unions (CSMF). The establishment of this system should cost 747 euros per year to doctors, according to the union.
A feasible project this year, according to the CSMF which questioned six major French banks on the feasibility of the project. “A card of this type already exists and is proving its effectiveness. It is distributed free of charge by CIC-Crédit Mutuel to its customers who are members of the Complémentaire Maison, recalls the CSMF.
In response to this proposal, Marisol Touraine, the Minister of Social Affairs and Health seemed puzzled and said “Do you think that adding a new device is simplicity?” . “A special blue health card as a way of not paying the costs is third-party payment,” she explains.
Especially since this device involves equipping doctors with an electronic payment terminal, yet only a third of them have this system and 10% of French people do not have no credit card. For these patients, the CSMF offers prepaid cards.
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