From 1er November, the amount of the basic consultation with the general practitioner will increase, from 25 euros to 26.50 euros. In specialist offices, this increase of 1.50 euros will bring the price to 31.50 euros, for the coordinated consultation – when a treating doctor refers a patient to a specialist – and the follow-up consultation. This change should have a limited impact for patients: although they will be billed for these increases which will affect a certain number of procedures, the remaining cost, after reimbursements from Health Insurance and complementary health insurance, will remain. unchanged.
These new prices come from the arbitration settlement taken in the spring by the State, after the failure of conventional negotiations between Health Insurance and the unions of private doctors. They constitute only one ” stage “, has already promised the director of Health Insurance, Thomas Fatôme, while the doctors’ unions called, at least, for an unconditional increase to 30 euros for consultation with the general practitioner. The commitment is the same on the side of the Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, who kicked off new conventional discussions on Tuesday, October 17, by sending the actors his framing letter. Negotiations should officially begin in mid-November, according to Medicare.
Welcoming this resumption, liberal doctors, including twelve unions and professional organizations who had called a strike on October 13, ” suspended ” their movement after just a few days. But the change to 26.50 euros at 1er November always constitutes a sensitive date, this sum of 1.50 euros remaining experienced as a “humiliation”we emphasize in the union ranks.
“Negotiations resume”
“The price will make people cringe at each consultation, psychologically the doctors will be very angry”, says Agnès Giannotti, head of MG France, the main union of general practitioners. This amount has not changed since 2017, doctors are reminded. Fixed at 20 euros until 2005, the price then gradually increased to 23 euros in 2010, before increasing, seven years later, to the 25 euros charged until now. “Fortunately the negotiations are resuming, but we will need results very quickly, we cannot wait a year”continues the trade unionist, who calls for the minister to set aside the rule of economic stabilizers, i.e. the period of six months after the signing of an agreement to see its tariff measures come into force.
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