Doctors are fiercely opposed to it, dentists will take the plunge. Installation regulations will come into force on 1is January 2025, for dental surgeons and dental centers, i.e. the deadline provided for by the agreement signed between the profession and Health Insurance in July 2023.
Main novelty to improve access to oral care and fight against “deserts” of professionals: in areas deemed over-endowed – called “non-priority”covering 5% of the population – dentists will no longer be able to set up freely. They will follow the rule of « 1 pour 1 »or an arrival conditional on the departure of another practitioner. At the same time, on territories judged the opposite “very under-resourced” – covering 30% of the population – incentive aid will increase, in particular that for installation, which will increase from 25,000 euros to 50,000 euros.
A few weeks before the application of this new system, the time has come for final adjustments, firstly to define the zones, region by region. A necessarily complex subject. “The mapping is being finalized”we tell Health Insurance. Several regional health agencies had not yet published the details by decree, according to the union count as of Tuesday December 10, such as Ile-de-France, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, or Hauts-de -France.
“We are awaiting the publication of all zoning, promised for December 16, indicates Patrick Solera, head of the Federation of Liberal Dental Unions. It would not be possible to apply these new rules in some regions and not others. » According to the agreement signed in the summer of 2023, around a hundred cities will be affected – in whole or in part – by installation regulation. “This will apply to the liberals, but it is above all a question of regulating the anarchic development of dental centers, estimates Pierre-Olivier Donnat, head of the Dental Surgeons of France. There will no longer be any growth in numbers in these areas, and that is a good thing. »
Fracture lines between territories
The implementation of this “selective agreement”, as it is called in health jargon, is all the more scrutinized as it is one of the measures regularly defended by parliamentarians, in recent years, in the face of worsening of “deserts” of doctors. A solution that has always been ruled out until now. A transpartisan bill, carried by the socialist deputy Guillaume Garot (Mayenne), was to put the question back on the agenda, with an examination hoped for by its promoters in early 2025.
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