Negotiations on the medical agreement between Medicare and liberal doctors will open in early October. The last one took place in 2016. If it includes a financial component, it must also make it possible to respond to the challenges of the health system, from medical deserts to telemedicine.
In parallel with the consultation on health launched by the executive, the Health Insurance is preparing to negotiate with the liberal doctors a new medical convention. How will these different projects fit together?
The negotiation of the medical convention will open at the beginning of October. This process of social dialogue, which takes place every five years, must be completed before the end of the first quarter of 2023. It will of course be articulated with the consultation that ministers François Braun [santé] and Agnes Firmin-Le Bodo [organisation territoriale et professions de santé] will launch on health, and with the annual review of the Social Security funding bill [PLFSS] expected in the fall. It’s an interesting timetable, a good alignment, with the political framework on one side and the financial framework on the other. All of these approaches feed into each other.
What are your priorities for this new agreement?
It is about being able to provide answers to medical deserts and improving access to care. This ranges from access to attending physicians to the fight against health inequalities, including the subject of prevention. Two documents must specify these guidelines: the ministerial framework letter and the vote on the guidelines by the council of the National Union of National Health Insurance Funds.
The agreement will of course include an important financial and pricing component, but also the tools that we want to deploy to doctors to support them, such as medical assistants, incentives to settle in under-dense areas, or even telemedicine. .
Are you going to increase the price of the consultation, as requested by several doctors’ unions?
This subject will be part of the discussions, as for each convention. It is normal for the tariff to change, a fortiori in this context of inflation. Then, as the doctors themselves say, we must speak of “rights and duties”, as well as “revaluations and compensation”. Physicians come to the table with their demands and we have ours to improve access to care. Through health insurance, it is the local authority that invests and logically expects commitments, such as that of getting even more involved in ongoing care, unscheduled care, or consultations in under-dense areas.
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