Liberal health professionals whose activity has collapsed due to confinement will indeed benefit from state aid. The payment of a first installment is scheduled for early May, the Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday.
These aids, paid by the Health Insurance, will "guarantee that each contracted liberal health professional experiencing a drop in activity" can "meet their costs," said the ministry in a statement. They will be paid in the form of a deposit "from the beginning of May", calculated on the basis of information provided by professionals, and will give rise to adjustments "once definitively known the losses of activity suffered", specifies he.
Calculated on several criteria
According to the ministry, the aid will vary according to the professionals and according to the income received during the confinement period. They will also take into account any aid received by professionals under other schemes, such as partial unemployment.
The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, announced at the beginning of April that he had opened negotiations with Medicare to allow liberal health professionals to benefit from "compensation for loss of income". These aids must make it possible to "compensate the operating expenses of liberal health professionals", when the latter "are registered with the Health Insurance and derive a substantial part of their income from them," underlines the ministry.
Less 40% of consultations with general practitioners
In a statement, the Union of Liberal Doctors (SML), however, deemed "insufficient" the device announced by the government, citing an "inequity" in terms of support provided "to public institutions".
The proposed aid “will only cover the expenses of the doctors. Admittedly, this has the merit of existing, but the SML believes that the account is not there, and that in the end, this approach reflects a form of contempt of the public authorities towards liberal doctors, ”estimates the union.
According to Health Insurance, the implementation of containment measures has led to a drop in consultations of 40% for general practitioners and 60% for specialists, some, such as physiotherapists and podiatrists, having almost suspended their activity.
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