Tiphaine Dubuard // Credits: AFP
While negotiations between unions and Health Insurance are slipping around the question of consultation fees, there are now more than 5,000 general practitioners who have signed and sent a letter to Health Insurance to announce their attention to “unconventionally” oneself.
Since the last round of negotiations last month, 2,000 doctors have joined the movement by signing their letter of withdrawal. A way of maintaining pressure while they campaign for the immediate revaluation of the consultation from 26 euros 50 to 30 euros. According to Doctor Jean-Christophe Nogrette, member of the general practitioners’ union MG France, the profession needs a shock of attractiveness.
“We are facing a catastrophic problem, that is to say it is a problem of access to care for the population. People can no longer find treating doctors because there are not enough of them. We really need to re-evaluate this function of the attending physician,” he explains to Europe 1.
A movement to be taken seriously
For Doctor Jérôme Marty, president of the French Union for Free Medicine, this deconventionalization movement should not be taken lightly. “Saying that doctors will not dare to ‘go unconventional’ is a profound error. Saying that patients will never want to pay 40 or 50 euros for a consultation without being reimbursed is a profound error.” As of Thursday, the unions and Health Insurance must resume their discussions with a view to an agreement.