Good news for patients. The physician fee overrunsgeneral practitioners and specialists who practice free tariffs (sector 2) went from 55.1% of the Social Security tariff in 2013 to 54.4% in the first half of 2014. The information is provided by a preliminary report from the Health insurance, revealed by AFP.
The clinical acts of specialists in particular are the most affected by this decrease: the overruns fell from 76.6% in 2011 to 71.9% in the first half of 2014.
In detail, it is the pediatricians, dermatologists, endocrinologists and even gynecologists who benefit the most from this reduction in excessive tariffs. Doctors are following suit as more and more of them stick to Social Security rates.
Effective controls
Doctors’ monitoring systems partly explain this downward trend. The sanctions launched against doctors for “excessive pricing practices” (fee overruns greater than 150% of the Secu tariff) begin to pay according to the Health Insurance.
If no practitioner was convicted, the warnings allowed a few hundred doctors targeted in 2013, at least by a warning letter, to lower their prices by 24.4%, explains the Health Insurance, taken over by Le Figaro.
In addition, the document does not say whether the contract for access to care concluded between the Health Insurance and private sector doctors 2 has proved effective. Intended to improve access to healthcare for the most modest insured by moderating excess fees, the contract would have 11,000 members. The signatory doctors undertake to freeze the cost of their consultations for three years, in exchange for the payment of part of their social contributions by the Social Security. But it is difficult for the moment to conclude that there is a real effect on reducing fee overruns.
