While the government wants a general decrease in specialist fees, the UFC-Que Choisir study reveals that “the overruns of specialist doctors’ fees follow a “frightening trend” on the rise “.
The consumer defense association analyzed for a year the overruns of three categories of specialists: pediatricians, ophthalmologists and gynecologists.
She concludes to ” an average increase of 1.7% in fees, almost double that of inflation (+ 0.9%) “, And observes that” two-thirds of the specialists studied changed their prices in one year: 45% increased them by 2.6 euros on average, 36% maintained them and 19% lowered them (-3.9 euros). The increases have mainly occurred in medium-sized towns of 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants (+ 1.8%) and among pediatricians (+ 7%) “.
Cap overruns?
According to Alain Bazot, president of UFC-Que Choisir, “ this worrying observation reveals that the contract of access to care is a real tartufferie “.
By signing this access to care contract (CAS), sector 2 doctors (where more and more young specialist doctors are practicing) undertake to limit their overruns, in exchange for social benefits paid by health insurance. .
Normally introduced on October 1, it has already been delayed by three months for lack of participants. The minimum number of doctors having to sign it (8,200) was not reached at the beginning of the summer!
According to AFP, Alain Bazot, president of the UFC-Que Choisir calls for “an immediate cap on overruns at 40% of the security rate, the closure of access to sector 2 (where more and more young people are practicing medical specialists) and in the longer term the “redefinition of the remuneration of doctors “, aiming at the disappearance of overruns “And call the”public authorities to finally put an end to the policy of complacent inaction in the face of the French health divide in order to act resolutely against excess fees“.
