Within the next few months, the government wishes to have sick leave reimbursed by Social Security when they are not issued by the attending physician during a teleconsultation.
- According to Thomas Fatôme, Director General of Health Insurance, teleconsultation cannot represent more than 20% of the acts carried out by a doctor.
- Faced with the increase in excesses, the government wishes to end the reimbursement of sick leaves delivered by teleconsultation by a practitioner other than the attending physician.
In an interview given Sunday newspaper (JDD) on September 25, Gabriel Attal, Minister of Action and Public Accounts, said he wanted to put an end to reimbursements by Social Security for sick leave in teleconsultation which are not provided by the attending physician.
Work stoppage in teleconsultation: deviations observed
At the start of the coronavirus epidemic, the government decided that Social Security would fully pay for teleconsultations by general practitioners and specialists. The objective of this measure? Limit the outings of French people during the Covid-19 health crisis. Faced with the resumption of the epidemic, this system was extended at the end of 2021.
However, abuses have been recorded. At the beginning of September, Thomas Fatôme, director general of Medicare had notably pointed out these overflows. “It has become the Wild West, and we need to better regulate practices. Some patients do not hesitate to make several teleconsultations in the same day to obtain the coveted work stoppage. We want to avoid these abuses, without curbing the request of patients with difficulties in accessing care”, he had explained to our colleagues from Figaro.
A measure to limit the risk of abuse
“We have seen an explosion of sick leave given, by teleconsultation, by a professional who is not the attending physician. It’s almost 100 million euros last year”, underlined Gabriel Attal. To fight against these abuses, judgments “delivered in video by a doctor who is not the treating doctor will no longer be reimbursed by Social Security”, said the minister.
According to Agence France Presse (AFP), the delisting of sick leave in teleconsultation is one of the key measures of the Social Security financing bill. This standard should be introduced from June 1, 2023.
