80% of GPs demand a consultation at 25 euros, according to a questionnaire sent by unions. Some are calling for it now.
The health law adopted before the end-of-year holidays was undoubtedly the straw that broke the camel’s back. After MG France, the first union of general practitioners, another, the UNOF-CSMF, is asking practitioners on Monday to charge a consultation fee of 25 euros now, compared to 23 euros today.
This call for tariff disobedience, which exposes doctors to penalties, seems to be supported by a great survey conducted by three trade union organizations (UNOF-CSMF, FMF, MG France) whose results have just been revealed. Nearly 5,000 GPs gave information on the mobilization they intend to launch from the start of 2016.
Go to 25 euros
First lesson, 80% of these doctors want to unilaterally increase the price of the consultation to 25 euros while the Health Insurance covers it on the basis of 23 euros.
In the same vein, they are 72% to want to increase the price of the visit (33 euros), and 66% hope to be able to double the amount of the consultation for the creation of a medical file of a new patient of which one becomes the attending physician, as well as for long consultations.
If the doctors carry out these threats, they expose themselves to prosecution by the primary health insurance funds (CPAM). They can result in the non-payment of their social security contributions.
For this reason, the UNOF-CSMF defends itself this January 4 in a press release writing that “the French general practitioner, with a net income of 26 euros per hour, has the lowest European income of general practitioners”.
Its representatives even advance “the possibility of taking more than 25 euros depending on the content of their consultation”. The second union, the FMF, could soon launch an identical slogan, suggested Dr. Claude Bronner contacted by Why doctor.
Generalized third-party payment boycott
Finally, 82% of GPs questioned in the survey indicated that they would refuse to apply third-party payment (waiver of costs in advance), which will be extended to all French people in 2017. They are almost as many (73 %) to want to go on an administrative strike against the CPAM. This consists in refusing the vital card to the patient in order to complicate the work of the Health Insurance because of the influx of care sheets.
Conversely, more extreme watchwords, such as deconvention, only receive 33% of the votes of doctors claiming to be ready to take this step “certainly” or without “doubt”. Apart from the medical convention, they indeed have total tariff freedom, but the counterpart is that the health insurance does not support any of their social security contributions. On the patient side, this means almost no reimbursement for the patient, unless the mutual fund covers the costs of its member.
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