Health Insurance and the unions of private doctors will resume their price negotiations on May 16, suspended at the beginning of April, Health Insurance announced on Friday. The union of specialist doctors Avenir Spé-Le Bloc, which plays a pivotal role in the negotiations, confirmed to AFP its presence at this new round of discussions, presented by Health Insurance as “a new and final session”.
“There has been progress” in the informal discussions with the management of the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) and “we are therefore returning to the negotiating table,” Doctor Patrick Gasser told AFP, co-president of Avenir Spé-Le Bloc. The next negotiation session “will be open on May 16 morning to unions wishing to succeed and may continue until the next day,” indicates the Cnam. “These 48 hours should allow the various unions to have a final text on the evening of May 17, which they can submit to their internal bodies and their members,” said Health Insurance.
At the beginning of April, when discussions on medical prices for the next five years seemed to be in the home stretch, they were suspended at the instigation of the specialist doctors’ unions. They denounced both the pricing proposals made to them, and, in a separate area, the rates planned for 2024 by the government for private clinics, in which many of them operate. The government plans to increase the prices of private clinics by 0.3% for 2024, compared to 4.3% for public hospitals.
Private clinics, supported by five of the six unions of representative liberal doctors, have decided to suspend their activities from June 3, to get the government to reverse its decision. They want to benefit from the same price increase as public hospitals, i.e. an increase of 500 million euros in their budget. The resumption of negotiations with the Cnam “does not call into question” the support of Avenir Spé-Le Bloc for the movement of private clinics on June 3, which have their own negotiations underway with the government, indicated Dr. Gasser.
Price negotiations between private doctors and health insurance must make it possible to increase the remuneration of practitioners, in exchange for collective commitments for access to care. Avenir Spé-Le Bloc plays a key role in the negotiation because it can sign alone on behalf of the specialist doctors. MG France, which can sign alone on behalf of general practitioners, had already announced that it was ready to resume discussions.