Afsané Sabouhi, edited by Clément Perruche 4:25 p.m., November 4, 2021
As of Monday, senators will study the bill to finance social security.
Among the reforms: direct access to paramedical consultations without going to the doctor.
A measure seen, for some professionals, as a threat to the health of the French.
Direct access, without going through your doctor, to a physiotherapist, speech therapist or orthoptist.
This is what is provided for in the social security financing bill which senators will debate from Monday.
Several professions are up against this evolution of the care path of the French.
Some even speak of an "uberization" of medicine.
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Paramedics, not trained in diagnosis
A large part of ophthalmologists, for example, are fiercely opposed to the idea that orthoptists can prescribe glasses to patients whose eyesight has not improved without real medical supervision. According to them, the latter are not trained in diagnosis. “Even when you have an infection that is relatively simple, there are differential diagnoses to rule out. You have back pain: it may be an infection of a vertebra, it may be a metastasis. that, we must be able to eliminate them, "explains at the microphone of Europe 1 Professor Philippe Marque, president of the National Professional Council of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
"The important thing is that they [the paramedics, Editor's note] are able to give the alert when we go out of their area of expertise."
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Economic ... and demographic goals
What also deeply irritates doctors is that this modification involves an article of the 2022 social security financing bill, and therefore has economic aims.
But the reform is also based on demographic arguments: by promoting the booking of appointments directly with paramedics, the executive hopes to unclog the offices of general practitioners.
Nonsense for some professionals because many medical sectors are affected.
"Improve medical deserts with this first-line prescription? Medical deserts are the same as paramedical deserts," denounces Philippe Marque.
This is why the order of doctors and the six liberal doctors' unions have asked in a joint letter to senators that these direct accesses to several paramedical professions be removed from the Social Security's draft budget for 2022.
For their part, elected officials have planned to add amendments to "secure this direct access to paramedics and provide them with guarantees for patients".