GPs strike over €23 visit fees

GPs have held a one-day strike to protest that their consultation fees have remained frozen, despite a promise by the government to raise them.

Fees for a visit to the doctor were supposed to rise from €22 to €23 in 2007.

The strike was called on March 11.

GPs say that their low wages, in comparison to other specialists, mean that students are abandoning their profession for other areas of medicine.

The number of doctors practising in France dropped for the first time last year and with fewer young doctors setting up as GPs doctors are seeing greater workload and longer hours.

The co-president of the general doctor's union Syndicat des Médecins Généralistes Dr Claude Bronner said the state was avoiding the e1 rise because of the cost.

“€1 might not seem a lot individually but in fact it would cost the health system around €250m a year, so it was a cost that was easy to cut," he said.

The union says the lack of GPs is being felt acutely in rural areas which are developing ‘medical deserts’ due to the lack of doctors per inhabitant.

Conventionné GPs – those who cap their fees to limits set by the state – earn on average €5,567 per month compared to other medical workers such as radiologists (€16,900) and anesthetists (€14,312). According to economic group the OECD, doctors in France earn 2.6 times above the average wage in their country compared to doctors in the UK who earn 4.2 times above average, or Germany (3.2 times higher).

Since the introduction of the carte vitale getting reimbursed for the cost of medical visits has been more efficient. At the consultation the doctor will ask for your card which will be put into a reader that links to a central database. At the end of the consultation you pay the whole fee to your doctor and within a few weeks the social security system will reimburse you directly into your bank account. The current reimbursement rate is 70%. A €1 fixed participation that is not refundable.