medical centers closed during the holidays to denounce the new pricing agreement

From Monday, medical centers in the department will close to contest the entry into force of the new medical pricing agreement signed in the spring.

Medical centers in Bouches-du-Rhône, opening consultations in the evenings, weekends and public holidays, have decided to close during the holidays, to denounce the new medical pricing agreement, a doctor told AFP, confirming information from La Provence.

This protest movement will be organized from Monday, the day after the entry into force of the new medical pricing agreement signed in the spring.

This agreement establishes that emergency and night, weekend and public holiday increases will only be billable if the doctor registers in a regulation system and takes patients sent to him on the 15th or if the patient received is actually in a situation emergency (suspicion of a condition putting the patient’s life or the integrity of his or her body at risk and requiring the rapid mobilization of human and material resources).

The fear of “two-speed medicine”

As a result, many consultations currently increased by 35 euros during these hours will now be increased by only 5 euros, “untenable” according to Aurore Baudoin-Haloche, general practitioner in a CHE (extended hours center) in Marseille and spokesperson for local CHEs. .

These centers “which do not receive any public subsidy are very expensive since we are much more equipped than traditional practices”, underlines the doctor: “For just five euros more per patient, doctors will no longer want to work at night or weekend,” she assures.

Aurore Baudoin-Haloche is concerned about “two-speed medicine”, where “patients with modest means”, who will not be able to pay excess fees, “will have to wait for hours in already congested emergency rooms, or wait on Monday to consult, even though they had a real medical emergency.”

Increases of 35 euros per night and 19 euros on Sundays and public holidays may only be collected for patients in emergency situations who have been referred to CHEs by the 15th.

Patients without emergency

According to the Health Insurance Fund, surveyed in December, these medical centers offering extended hours, which have multiplied in recent years, provide “a service to the population in many places”. But “at the same time, we can clearly see that this offer has developed outside of any framework regulated by the ARS”.

The Cnam particularly deplores “patients arriving en masse, even though some did not necessarily need a doctor” in an emergency. Health insurance also ensures that it recognizes the arduousness of working during these extended hours with these additional 5 euros per consultation.

According to the Cnam annual report, unregulated activity (patients not referred by the 15 or the regulation put in place by the ARS) during PDSA hours (permanent ambulatory care) has almost doubled between 2021 and 2022 (+ 47.1%), causing associated expenses to jump.