Are telephone consultations now reimbursed?

This Saturday, April 4, the Ministry of Health announced that telephone consultations with patients with or suspected of Covid-19 would be reimbursed like teleconsultations. "After the decision to simplify and improve the reimbursement of access to remote medical consultations on video in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic, the Minister of Solidarity and Health authorized by exception consultations by telephone", can be read in a press release from the ministry.

Some patients do not have access to digital tools. For these people, consultations by telephone are therefore authorized and will now be covered by social security. The ministry specifies that this is reserved for "patients with or suspected of Covid or with long-term affection or aged over 70 years ". This authorization "by exception" intervenes only in the context of the current health crisis due to the spread of coronavirus.

Teleconsultations, reimbursed by social security since September 2018, are experiencing a real boom since the start of containment, implemented on March 17. Nearly half a million teleconsultations were billed between March 23 and March 29, according to figures released by the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam). It is therefore more than one consultation in 10 that is carried out by online video in France, against less than 1% before the start of the epidemic.

Following confinement, the health ministry had already relaxed the rules for teleconsultation. In this period of health crisis, it is indeed possible to request one with a doctor who is not the attending physician and without having scheduled a physical consultation with him in the previous 12 months.

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Video by Clemence chevallet

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