The medical unions are claiming 25 euros immediately and not in 2018. One month from the deadline, no one wants to sign the text of Health Insurance.
On June 22, after four months of conventional discussions at the headquarters of the Cnamts (1), the CSMF (2) decided to leave the negotiating table. The first union of liberal doctors intended to denounce the absence of proposals for texts and figures aimed at increasing medical tariffs.
But this Thursday, the CSMF finally received a quantified proposal. The union therefore decided to return to the table of Nicolas Revel, the director of Health Insurance. Without much success. While the session began at 9:30 am, its chairman, Dr Jean-Paul Ortiz, slammed the door again at … ten o’clock.
Contacted by Why, Dr Ortiz underlines “the text of the Cnamts is very far from what is necessary to save liberal medicine. We don’t want crumbs. We demand the basic consultation at 25 euros immediately and without waiting for April 2018 for all doctors regardless of the sector of practice ”.
Dr Jean-Paul Ortiz, president of the CSMF: ” The government did not get it. The CSMF wants strong local liberal medicine …“
Zero signature on the meter
And the CSMF is not the only dissatisfied organization since the Union of Liberal Doctors (SML) also left the negotiating table, “finding no progress on reading the proposals of the fund”. “To date, nothing allows us to consider a modern liberal medicine meeting the expectations of all doctors and the population,” wrote the union in a press release.
Same tone on the side of the Federation of Doctors of France (FMF). Its president, Jean-Paul Hamon, also shortened the meeting. “The destruction of liberal medicine is programmed,” he announces. The general practitioner from Clamart (Hauts-de-Seine) “simply hopes that the establishment of third-party payment will wake up doctors”.
Finally, the LE BLOC union outright boycotted the meeting and MG France changed his speech. Suspected by other organizations of playing the government’s game, the first general practitioners’ union is nevertheless very clear. “If it’s 24 euros, then 25, that means there will be no convention,” responded Dr Claude Leicher, its president, to Agence France Presse (AFP).
25 euros in two years
Not enough to move the boss of Health Insurance one iota. Nicolas Revel immediately reacted by confirming that the revaluation of the consultation of general practitioners to 25 euros in two stages was “unavoidable”. “The principle of phasing is absolutely essential given the cost of this measure,” he said to AFP. All this while adding that “two euros at once, that would not leave much space to do anything else in 2017”.
If the medical unions accept his schedule, he also agrees to make new proposals at the next negotiating session scheduled for July 13.
Towards a minimum arbitral settlement?
Faced with such poorly embarked conventional negotiations, we must remember the rules for signing a medical convention. Author of the book ” From unionism to the convention, the story of a long river not so quiet “, Dr Patrick Carlioz recently explained to Why actor that it will take “at least three signatures for a new medical convention to enter into force.” “If this is not the case, it is a minimum arbitration rule which will emerge”, he specified. This arbitrator will fix by decree the new relations between the Health Insurance and the liberal doctors so that the patients continue to be reimbursed. The worst option for all the unions at the table.
(1) National Health Insurance Fund for salaried workers
(2) Confederation of French Medical Syndicates
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