Platforms like Doctolib or Maiia “will play the game” to enable the collection of “rabbit tax” of 5 euros, which the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, called for on Saturday, in order to limit unfulfilled medical appointments, assured, Thursday April 11, the Minister Delegate in charge of Health, Frédéric Valletoux, on Sud Radio.
Concretely, how can we make the at-fault patient pay this amount? For the executive, the penalty should be retained using the bank card imprint taken by the appointment platforms, and doctors will be able to apply it, or not. A solution to which Stanislas Niox-Chateau, president and CEO of Doctolib, opposes.
“We must not create a new administrative burden for caregivers and hinder access to care”judged Mr. Niox-Chateau, interviewed by France InterWednesday. “There are 15% of patients who are in a situation of illiteracy [qui n’ont pas Internet ou qui ne savent pas l’utiliser] and 5% who do not have a bank card. It is unthinkable to hinder access to care for them », further justified the boss of Doctolib.
“How will practitioners manage the majority of appointments that are not made online? (…)manage patient complaints, disputes (…). It’s unimaginable to imagine that secretariats will register bank cards”he added.
In force “from 1er January 2025 »
“It’s a technical problem,” And “I understand that there are organizational matters”but this idea of penalty, “it was Doctolib who himself proposed it a few months ago”, said Mr. Valletoux on Thursday. Doctolib “is not the only speaker”, And “all the platforms will play the game, we will set this up with them”he assured.
“However, we will only cover half of the appointments” thus, since today the other half is taken by secretariats or the doctors themselves, said the minister. For doctors, “it’s not a huge administrative task (…) technically it’s feasible”, he judged. He assured that this penalty will come into force « from 1er January 2025 » thanks to a law which will be presented to parliament “in the summer” Or ” in autumn “.
According to the order of doctors and certain unions, such as the French Union for Free Medicine, the cost of these “rabbits” is estimated at 27 million lost consultations each year – an estimate which is not statistically robust, due to lack of exhaustive study of health professionals or statistical study carried out on a representative sample of French practitioners.