Faced with the deterioration of the mental health of the French in connection with the health crisis, the players in complementary health insurance announce support “from the first euro” for sessions with a liberal psychologist.
- Mutual funds, provident institutions and insurance companies are committed to paying for consultations with psychologists
- The Court of Auditors had recommended last February an extension of the reimbursement of these consultations by Health Insurance to the whole territory.
- Social Security only supports these consultations on an experimental basis in four departments
It is first of all an intention. The decision of the federations of mutual insurance companies, health insurers and provident institutions, announced on March 22 and taken up by the FranceInfo site, to cover “within the limit of 60 euros per session” consultations with psychologists is taken but does not is not yet effective. Discussions with the doctors’ unions and the representatives of the psychologists must first succeed. And one of the subjects that will undoubtedly be discussed is that of the reimbursement by Health Insurance of these “psy” consultations: for the moment, this reimbursement by Social Security only exists on an experimental basis. in four departments, Bouches-du-Rhône, Haute-Garonne, Landes and Morbihan. The Court of Auditors decided last February for an extension to the whole territory of this experiment but nothing has yet progressed in this direction.
The health crisis is therefore moving the lines on this support for consultations with psychologists. This crisis is indeed leading to an obvious deterioration in the mental health of the French, particularly among young people (15-24 years old) among whom depressive states have increased by 22% between 2019 and 2020.
Sessions prescribed by the attending physician
Hence this desire of the actors of complementary health to generalize the reimbursement “from the first euro” of consultations with liberal psychologists. But with two conditions: the first is that these consultations must be prescribed by the attending physician, the second is that, for some of the structures that provide this care, and in particular the insurance companies, this reimbursement of “shrinks” would not go beyond four consultations per year. The other stakeholders, mutuals and provident institutions, did not impose this limit on the number of consultations per year. The price of these consultations is on average in France from 50 to 70 euros per session.
The question is, however, to know if taking charge of the “psy” sessions makes it possible to obtain results whatever their number: the limitation to four consultations, in the opinion of a specialized therapist, “cannot be useful that in the event of an emergency with, for example, the expression of suicidal temptations making it possible to redirect the patient to his doctor or for sessions offering practical exercises to combat stress or sleep disorders… the psychologists who practice therapeutic dialogue have very few results with a limited number of sessions”.
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