Surcharge for excess fees: the budget rapporteur warns of a risk of acceleration of doctors’ withdrawals
In the event of adoption of the article which surcharges excess fees, Thibault Bazin, deputy (LR) for Meurthe-et-Moselle and general rapporteur of the “Secu” budget, fears a “acceleration” doctors’ disagreements with health insurance.
Adopted in committee, article 26 of the Social Security financing project (PLFSS) allows the government to increase by decree a contribution that doctors pay on their fee supplements, currently 3.25%.
As written today, “it’s an invitation to unconventionally, to get out of Optam” (Practical pricing option controlled), declared Tuesday morning the MP during a meeting organized by the Association of Social Information Journalists (Ajis), before the start of examination of the text in the hemicycle.
In sector 1, doctors do not charge overcharges. In sector 2, a doctor can charge prices higher than the basic levels of Social Security, and these excesses are not covered by Social Security. The option « Opt» allows the excess of fees in a limited form, in return for financial advantages.
This item, “it’s “I tax you for excesses, I make no difference whether you are approved or not”” or “between those who control overtaking” and do “sometimes only 15% excess on 15% of the patient base”administrator Thybaut Bazin. “I am convinced that behind a good intention, we will have the effects of accelerating the deregulation (…) And who pays in the end? The patient »he added.
He recalled that doctors have been waiting for years for a reassessment of reimbursed prices. “When I saw that appendectomy had not changed in its pricing for 20 years, that childbirth had not changed for 20 years, I asked myself questions”he continued, deploring “a form of hypocrisy of Health Insurance”.
He also criticized article 24, which offers the possibility to the Director General of Health Insurance to unilaterally reduce prices for medical specialties considered to be very profitable. “Who would be against fighting against abusive rents? But when I start looking at specialty by specialty, I tell myself, I’m going to have collateral victims”he said.
This article returns to “give nuclear weapons” to health insurance, “without being assured of having finesse in targeting”he judged. Within the same specialty, “some acts are very remunerative and others are not very remunerative”he added, giving the example of scanner, or mammography, “uninteresting” financially compared to MRI.
