INTERVIEW
It's a slow start. Launched a year ago to fight against medical deserts, teleconsultations of medicine were realized only 60,000 times in twelve months. But for Nicolas Revel, Director General of Health Insurance, it is not a failure. "This is not the analysis that we do," he said Thursday on Europe 1.
"When we started the teleconsultation a year ago, it's something that was not done at all in France," he recalls. "No doctor was equipped, the practice was not installed, and we saw in the first months that there was virtually no teleconsultation." But things have changed since the beginning of 2019. "We have seen a teleconsultation flow appear and grow."
An exponential rhythm
The pace is now exponential. "After six months, we recorded 7,000 teleconsultations, six months later we are at 60,000, a five-fold increase in six months, and we sincerely believe that this pace will continue to increase significantly in the coming months. ", insists Nicolas Revel.
Especially since, he recalls, a new device must come into force in January 2020: "We will pay nurses [who come to the home] to trigger a teleconsultation by assisting the patient." An initiative that could help popularize telemedicine among, among others, the elderly. "This is how things will develop, I believe very sincerely," concluded Nicolas Revel.