Doctors want pay for ‘no-shows’
Missed appointments are costing €742million in lost fees – and the work of thousands of doctors
DOCTORS are calling for patients to be made to pay for missed appointments: saying that it is costing them €742million in lost fees.
The Confédération des Syndicats Médicaux Français (CSMF) says that a study had shown that doctors were losing an average of six or eight appointments totalling two hours of consultations each week.
If scaled across the country that amounted to more than 28 million appointments missed each year and the doctors said the wasted time could be spent doing home visits, especially in rural areas.
CSMF president Michel Chassang said the study was done in Franche-Comté with 1,900 GPs and specialists taking part.
They found that they lost the equivalent of the work of 137 specialists and 60 GPs because of the missed appointments.
The 28 million missed appointments meant that they had the equivalent of 8,433 doctors working for nothing.
Mr Chassang said doctors had to find different ways to work with patients to avoid the problem – such as using the internet for cancellations, sending text message reminders etc – but doctors were losing out and patients should be made to pay for missed appointments.
At present the law says there is no obligation for a patient to pay for a missed appointment and Philippe Paganelli, president of the Conseil de l'Ordre des Médecins in Indre-et-Loire, told France Info: “Before he can be paid a doctor must examine a patient.”
