France proposes reducing dental care reimbursements from 2027
The change would apply to routine, everyday care such as scale and polish work
France wants to reduce the proportion it reimburses for common dental treatments from January 1, 2027, shifting a greater share of the cost onto complementary health insurers (mutuelles) or patients themselves.
Announced by the health minister on July 24, the move would see the state's reimbursement rate for dental consultations and care fall from 60% to 50%. A draft decree setting out the change has been sent to the state health insurer, Assurance Maladie, for its governing council's consultative opinion.
Dental care is not the only area being looked at: separate draft decrees also propose increasing mutuelles' contributions towards medical transport, medical devices and certain medicines.
Dentists' representatives have reacted angrily, saying the plan could have serious consequences. They point out that this would be the second cut to the reimbursement rate in under four years: the same rate was lowered from 70% to 60% in October 2023.
Should the government proceed as planned, the state's contribution towards dental care will have fallen by 20 percentage points since then. The move is part of a broader push to cut down on public health spending.
Which treatments will be affected?
The change applies to routine, everyday dental care rather than major prosthetic work.
Treatments likely to see a bigger patient contribution include (you would only get 50% back on these amounts instead of 60%):
Scale and polish (Détartrage): base reimbursement rate of €28.92
Root canal treatment (dévitalisation): base rate of between €41.60 and €104
A tooth extraction (l'extraction d'une dent): base rate of between €25 and €39
The 100% Santé scheme, which guarantees full reimbursement with no out-of-pocket cost on a defined range of dental prosthetics at capped prices including certain ceramic crowns, bridges and dentures would not be affected. The preventive and routine treatments listed above fall outside this scheme.
See our article about what exactly the 100% Santé scheme covers.
Who will be hit hardest?
The cost of the change is expected to be passed on through higher mutuelle premiums.
It will also directly affect the estimated 4% of people in France with no complementary health cover at all, as well as those who are only partially covered, including pensioners, young adults and the unemployed, according to the dental health body union, the Union Française pour la Santé Bucco-Dentaire (UFSBD).
The UFSBD warned that the change risks pushing more patients to delay treatment.
It said too many people already wait until they are in pain or facing an emergency before seeking care, rather than attending preventive check-ups, a pattern that tends to lead to heavier, more invasive procedures. The organisation argued that being able to eat, speak, smile, socialise and live without pain depends directly on good oral health, and pointed to links between dental disease and other chronic conditions, including malnutrition.
Discouraging patients from seeking treatment now risks a decline in the nation's oral health and a bigger bill to pay later warns the CDF, a union representing self-employed dentists in France.
What should people in France do?
Anyone living in France without top-up health cover, or with a policy offering only limited dental benefits, may want to review their mutuelle contract ahead of any change.
Those due for routine treatment such as a scale-and-polish, filling or extraction could also consider having the work carried out as soon as possible before any new lower-reimbursement rates take effect.
The Connexion recently published an article about who can benefit from France’s free or low-cost top-up insurance.
