” Overwhelming “. This would be the adjective chosen by the Court of Auditors to qualify the report it wrote on oral care, according to Le Figaro, who obtained the document. Between professionals and Health Insurance, the rag is burning. While 20% of French people would give up dental care, the Court of Auditors is issuing proposals to distribute the costs between Social Security and complementary.
For the Court of Auditors, the finding is final. Oral care would be an example in France of “bankruptcy of public policies vis-à-vis professionals”. The sages thus point to a disengagement of the public authorities and a lack of transparency on the part of health professionals. A point also noted by the report, the weight of excess fees: they now represent more than half of the income of practitioners. Blame it on prices that are too low and which have not been sufficiently upgraded, retort the unions of dentists.
The subject will also be on the table from September, when health insurance, complementary insurance and unions will meet to negotiate prices. The three parties will then be able to discuss the proposals of the Court of Auditors, the final report of which should be published by the end of the summer.
And faced with such an acknowledgment of failure, the Court calls for an in-depth reform of the system. And this could well go through a new distribution of charges between health insurance and complementary, precisely. The figures speak for themselves: the amount of oral care is around 10 billion euros, of which a third is reimbursed by health insurance and 39% by complementary health insurance. The rest to be paid for by patients exceeds 2 billion. One option for the Court of Auditors would be, explains Le Figaro, to leave the reimbursement of “heavy care”, including prostheses, to the complementary. Health insurance could thus strengthen the reimbursement of “preventive and maintenance” care.
Another proposal from the Court of Auditors: the development of healthcare networks. The principle is simple: the patient is granted a discount on the amount of the services if he consults an “accredited” practitioner. The principle already exists, but crystallizes the opposition of the unions of practitioners. Not sure that the proposals of the sages of rue Cambon will be a great success with the main concerned. However, the same applies to the oral health of the French, which the Court of Auditors now considers “mediocre”.
