Tuesday January 30, 2024, Gabriel Attal gave his general policy speech to the deputies. Faced with a healthcare system in crisis, the Prime Minister has made his action a continuation of the five-year term. “We will continue to rearm our health system“, he said. If he wants to attract new doctors, the head of government also hopes put an end to a scourge that prevents certain patients from consulting: unkept medical appointments. Thus, he confirmed that “from this year”a medical appointment not honored by a patient would be due to the doctor. “When you have a doctor’s appointment and you don’t come without warning, you pay”, launched Gabriel Attal. According to figures from the Academy of Medicine and the National Council of the Order of Physicians, 6 to 10% of appointments made with the doctor every week are not honored. The day after this announcement, on the set of Good morning ! The TF1 morning showdoctor Vincent Valinducq explained that each year 27 million consultations were therefore “lost”.
Doctors tired of missed appointments
“I am a general practitioner, and I sometimes have up to five rabbits per day”he declared, very annoyed by this situation. “It prevents other patients from making appointments while the waiting times are getting longer and longer. As a result, they head to the emergency room when there is sometimes no need to be.” According to Doctor Vincent Valinducq, one of the causes of these appointments which are not honored could be linked to the fact that more and more appointments are made over the internet. If he wants patients to keep their appointments, he does not hide that this “rabbit tax” could be difficult to implement. “At the level of the Public Health Code, as a doctor, we cannot bill for a consultation that did not take place even if the patient did not notify. Consideration should therefore be given to modifying this Code.”
The “rabbit tax” defended by Gabriel Attal is not new
This “rabbit tax” measure is not new since it had already been addressed by Gabriel Attal in November 2023, when he was Minister of the Budget. He proposed that the sum resulting from a consultation not honored be reimbursed in part by Health Insurance to the health professionals concerned.. However, this measure was unsuccessful. If Vincent Valinducq does not know whether this tax could put an end to all these questions posed by patients, he nevertheless welcomes the initiative. “I think we need to make patients responsible. At the same time, we should perhaps also launch an awareness campaign”took the liberty of adding the doctor, morning columnist for the first channel.