After multiple meetings between Health Insurance and the liberal medicine unions, the account is not there, according to them. There is no agreement on the new medical agreement.
The medical convention is a set of texts which governs the links between liberal doctors and health insurance. The last entered into force in September 2011 for a period of five years. Thus, since May, the sessions to conclude a new text have intensified at the headquarters of the CNAM. At the rate of one meeting per week. But while a signature must be found before mid-July, negotiations between the five unions (CSMF, FMF, MG France, SML, LE BLOC) and the state are stalling.
“It is obvious: after multiple meetings, the account is still not there”, writes the CSMF in his last press release. The first union of liberal doctors denounces in particular “a delay in the promotion of liberal medicine. The government ignores the deep malaise of liberal medicine, ”he concludes.
A minimum structure package for unions
The story is identical on the side of the most protesting union. The Federation of Doctors of France (FMF) is more than anything disappointed by the envelope proposed for the “structure package”. This sum should make it possible to finance the equipment of the doctor’s office and to hire staff in order to relieve the doctors of administrative tasks. Health insurance is not opposed to it, and even offers assistance of 1,700 euros per year and per practitioner.
The FMF considered that this fixed price should not be less than € 50,000 per year, “Even if the structure fee could be variable depending on the place of installation and the mode of exercise isolated or grouped”, she specifies.
Nicolas Revel also proposed to increase the consultation of the general practitioner from 23 to 25 euros. A first for six years for general practitioners. The MG France union, the main general practitioner union, had been in favor of it for a long time. But for the FMF and the CSMF, this is not enough. These two unions offered respectively 30 and 40 euros (minimum) for the basic consultation.
Protracted negotiations
To understand the significant gap between the unions’ demands and the amounts proposed, it is necessary to recall the context. Health spending growth for 2016 was capped by the government at 1.75%. This is a historically low National Health Insurance Spending Target (ONDAM). As a result, Nicolas Revel, director general of the CNAM, has very little leeway to enhance the practice of doctors.
In order to try to find an agreement, The Parisian indicates that Nicolas Revel has just asked the doctors’ unions for two additional negotiation sessions at the end of July.
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