After seeing their turnover soar thanks to the Covid-19 screening tests, the time is now on a diet for the analysis laboratories. On the occasion of the presentation, this Monday, September 26, of the Social Security financing bill, the latter were ordered to lower the prices of their current examinations (excluding Covid tests). The government plans, thanks to this measure, to achieve 250 million euros in savings in 2023.
This summons to more frugality angered biologists, annoyed by the method. The profession has indeed until 1er February 2023 to determine in consultation with Health Insurance which examinations will be affected by price reductions. If no agreement is reached by this date, it is the government that will then decide alone on the new rates for acts. “We have never denied the strong profitability linked to Covid-19. But we didn’t decide on this open bar testing policy. We have equipped ourselves, at our own expense, with the machines to make them. We have done a service to the nation, and today, we are being stunned by imposing this reduction on our actions, which risks changing the complete face of biology”is indignant François Blanchecotte, president of the union of biologists.
Boosted by the pandemic
Since the start of the epidemic, medical biology laboratories have been, along with pharmacies, on the front line in screening for the virus, taking tens of thousands of samples every week throughout France. Between May 2020 and July 2022, more than 120 million PCR tests were carried out by biologists. This exceptional increase in activity has boosted the turnover of the sector: the latter rose from 5.1 billion euros in 2019 to 9.4 billion euros in 2021, an increase of 85% in l space of two years. Far from the 1% average annual growth posted between 2013 and 2019 before the start of the health crisis.
Boosted by the pandemic, analytical laboratories have, unsurprisingly, seen their profitability soar. Relatively stable between 2016 and 2019, when it stood at around 19% – a high figure compared to other sectors –, it reached 23% in 2021. “which does not take into account the indebtedness of laboratories”, observes the union of biologists, but which has not gone unnoticed. This strong profitability justifies, according to the government, the savings measures imposed on the sector within the framework of the Social Security financing bill. “The growth in medical biology expenditure, amplified by the health crisis, requires thinking about more efficient expenditure regulation mechanisms”he notes.
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