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QuoteDENTISTS: DIFFICULT NEGOTIATIONS ON DENTAL CARE
Posted by Élodie, on 04/04/2012
Dentists' unions, health insurance companies and complementary health care providers have resumed difficult negotiations in an attempt to increase the value of routine dental care and cap the cost of prostheses for low-income patients. This meeting, presented as the last one, could however be followed by another one, as most of the negotiators consider that the deadlines before the presidential elections are too short to reach an agreement, in the form of a rider to the 2006 dentists' agreement.
For several years, dentists have been demanding an increase in their conservative care (scaling, fillings, devitalization, etc.), which are at the social security rate - known as the opposable rate - and have not been increased much. To cover their expenses, dentists are making up for it with prostheses and orthodontics, which are free of charge, and whose rates have risen sharply. The health insurance proposes to cap these fees for people receiving complementary health insurance (ACS), with low incomes, i.e. about 3.5 million people, in exchange for an increase in conservative care. An effort is required from both complementary health insurance companies to better cover the cost of care and from dentists to lower their fees.
"Conservative care rates in France are half or even a third lower than in the rest of Europe," deplores Jean-François Chabenat, president of the FSDL (federation of liberal dental unions). A filling costs 40 euros in France, compared to 155 euros in Germany and 200 euros in the United Kingdom, L'Herron said. The unions would also like to obtain, like the doctors, an increase in the consultation to 23 euros, against 21 currently.
This final session therefore seems complicated, especially since one of the unions, the UJCD (Union of Young Dental Surgeons), slammed the door on the negotiations at the end of a previous meeting, deeming the proposals insufficient and denouncing an "umpteenth attempt to patch things up that satisfies no one.
