Provision of doctors

Health Care & Carte Vitale
42

TBH I don’t think France works that way. Culturally people don’t take over others’ work, it seems, a lot, during absences for hols etc, and at least partially not even for unpredicted absences. It’s almost like “I already have my own full workload”, because I m existing, here, so there isn’t the thought of taking on more. Maybe also not wanting to get landed with additional duties permanently or regularly through the back door. I’m still working it out but there isn’t the flexibility Anglos might get stuck with delivering.

Also proactive communication of inconvenience doesn’t seem to be able to be counted on for a variety of reasons.

43

I agree. But I shall give him the benefit of doubt for the moment and go see if he’s there at 3.30pm which is when he opens for the afternoon session. Or maybe the signpost is being renewed for a replacement doctor?

44

Most doctors are professional libérale, so their own one-person bands and not employed by the health service, nor contracted to them. You cannot compare to the UK scenario. Generally a doctor will tell you that they are leaving in good time for you to find a new doctor, but if there has been a sudden change in circumstances then this can be overlooked.

bonzocat, are you registered with him as médecin traitant? If you want to PM me his name and location I could dig into the internet to see if there’s anything.

45

My doctor for the last over 20 years who was also a friend and my nearest neighbour, dropped dead of a heart attack last September, on a walking holiday in Corsica, in a place with poor mobile coverage. Terrible.
I hope similar hasn’t happened to your doctor.

2 Likes
46

If the guy is suddenly ill, had a breakdown and thrown the towel in or some other calamity has befallen him then, of course, one has sympathy.

But it exposes the weakness in the system that a single point of failure will suddenly mean a large numbers of patients left without primary care. I suppose it is to be welcomed that the average number of patients per GP in France is only about 900, not 2300 as in the UK.

47

The good news is that in that sort of case, for sure the pharmacist will know.

2 Likes
48

Thanks. I’m leaving now to ask at the pharmacy.

49

Well, I was hoping to see the senior pharmacienne and go down on my knees for help, but no such luck. However, a newbie behind the counter said she’d have to go backstage to find out what’s going on with my doctor.

Panic over she said - my doctor will be open after 3.30pm this afternoon, so I shall get my repeat prescription. Thank goodness!

My doctor is always there on Monday mornings, but not so today, and so I have a suspicion that his missing nameplate is being replaced by one with less onerous days and times displayed. Or something like that. Seeing as how I suspect he’s been under great stress of late.

We shall see. I like being a detective from time to time.

Thanks for all your prompt responses.

Added edit. In my deliberations looking for available doctors not too far away, just in case, I find that they, mostly, are pushing video consultations. Don’t much like that.

5 Likes
50

A sorry tale to tell. Went back to see the doctor, saw 5 people waiting on the pavement for him, but he didn’t turn up. We left. Went back to pharmacy and was advised to go to the local medical centre for advice, which I did. I spoke with someone there and was told he had packed up, gone away!

The pharmacy renewed my prescription except for sleeping pills, one of the benzos, and if I can’t get them soon, I shall be getting withdrawal symptoms.

There are 5 Médécin Généralistes at the medical centre, but by appointment. First time in 30 years or so that I now have to make an appointment! No option but to ring them all asap to find one I can make my own!

If one of them will have me!

51

Good luck with this. Sorry to hear about your MT - he must have been at breaking point to act like that, and I’m not surprised.

We gave up our single doctor practice with relief. The group practice we now go to in town just works so well. In our experience, the best thing is to develop a really good relationship with the group secretary - she is the one who squeezes us in when she knows we have a problem, makes sure we get the necessary messages (eg an option of an early appointment for a covid vax when all of that first kicked off). It helps that we are Brits who speak bad French (we are memorable) and I play the elderly batty deeply grateful Englishwoman card for all it’s worth - they find us eccentric / disorganised / needing help.
Also, the centre starts at 8am and goes on to 7pm (later if in the middle of a consultation) and there is always the possibility of being seen by another doctor in an emergency.
We never ever got that level of help/service from our single MT.

2 Likes
52

I chose the only secteur 1 Doctor I could see in the centre’s display case, and have an appointment for Friday morning. The centre looks brand new and could be useful as there is a psychiatrist, a dietician/nutritionist, a chiropodist, a clinical psychologist and others.

A new start for me on the medical front.

7 Likes
53

Be quick.
Let us know how you get on.

EDIT just seen you got an appointment. Hopefully new doc will accept you as Médécin Traitant and give you the form for CPAM. Otherwise I think for most your reimbursements for seeing them would be lower.

Later, presumably you will get some goss and be able to tell us what happened.

3 Likes
54

The doc should be able to do it immediately online from the desk…

1 Like
55

I think that sounds just great. Ours was the same, a few years back - brand new - group practice, nurses for things like having stitches out etc Just great.

1 Like
56

In addition to the 5 doctors, a psychiatrist, a dietician/nutritionist, a chiropodist, a clinical psychologist, there are also 5 masseurs and 2 nurses. Sounds like it’s geared up towards the elderly, like me!

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57

My Ameli account says Vos droits à l’Assurancee Maladie sont ouverts.

And opposite Caisse d’assurance maladie, it says CPAM de Charente Maritime and shows a Code d’organisme number.

Does that mean I’m already covered by CPAM?

1 Like
58

Yes you are registered with CPAM, but Karen was talking about a different aspect. To get the best reimbursement rates you have to have a single médicin traitant registered with CPAM. If you don’t you are charged a slightly higher rate. It used to require you getting the doctor to sign a form and then sending that to CPAM, but now it is done online by the doctor. You can tell on the landing page of your Ameli account there is a box which says whether you have a mutuelle registered and a médicin traitaint etc

(Long story as to why that is, which probably not of interest!)

59

Thanks. That box has my newly vanished doctor’s name still there. I’ll ask my new doctor when I see him about him having his name in the box.

2 Likes
60

I raised this for bonzocat because 2+ years ago when I first met my MT, she spontaneously handed me the completed and signed form accepting to be my Médécin Traitante and told me to give it to CPAM. I hadn’t even known about this thing of declaring a Médécin Traitant.

All went well till January-May of last year when having begged, begged and chased the UK government to renew my S1, they refused to accept applications for at least 4 months - not even to go into a queue - as they were feeling a bit busy.

I begged and told the UK I would get chucked out of the French health system, that had been an nightmare to get into, that I’d only been able to get into earlier last year. The UK kept refusing over months to accept my renewal application, they said I could only apply 28 days before my existing S1 expired.

Needless to say, thanks to the UK I got chucked out of the French health system. I was reinstated just in time to be refused CSS due to the temporary rule France put in denying CSS to anyone who had an S1, that lasted about 9 months. And by the time I was reinstated, the only local dentist reachable for me had stopped even considering new patients and is still refusing new patients today.

Whilst approving CSS this year on the spot, the CPAM person mentioned there was no Médecin Traitant on my record. As thanks to @JaneJones 's advice I had attended the merting with a very full dossier, I was able to find the copy of the original form the doctor had given me in my dossier immediately and said oh yes I do have an MT and definitely on my records. And also handed over a previous screenshot from my Ameli account out of my dossier showing the MT on my record as well…

The Ameli person looked nonplussed but told me I would have to get the doctor to do another form as the MT had disappeared from my records.

I haven’t, because 3 month delay for appointments with doc, I am not going to take an appointment slot from someone else just for this, it will be done when I see her for another reason in a couple of months when needed.

I am, however, sorely tempted to make an official Data Subject Request to CPAM for this piece of data - “Who deleted the MT from my account?”

Until then I am not claiming 2 appointments I had to pay the full 25 euros for. As of course, once my rights in the French health syatem were finally restored after the UK got off its chvff and issued the S1 renewal, I then had to wait months for a new carte vitale so had to pay everything in full. As my carte vitale - that I’d only had a couple of months - had also bern cancelled by CPAM when they threw me out of the health system, after the British renewal of S1 failed to appear in time.

I think my reimbursement will be 20 euros less for 2 doctor’s appointments due to no MT. If, as I suspect, someone in CPAM.erroneously deleted my MT, I don’t want them refusing to redo my claim.

  • Does anyone know can the equivalent of DSAR (Data Subject Access Rights) in France - which as EU legislation was same as in UK - be used on CPAM to get this piece of information? * My systems/audit knowledge tells me that CPAM would be obliged to retain who performed and/or authorised this change to my records (ie deleted the MT), as part of an audit trail.

There’s a chance the MT did it, but unlikely as I had only recently seen her and she’d specified in how many months to return to see her again about something. My bet is CPAM boobed (as the MT deletion was only in March this year) and didn’t want to admit it. But so long as no MT my reimbursements would be notably less and not my fault so I would like to obtain this information : who deleted my MT ?

61

Our Doc will do renewal prescriptions without an appointment (if appropriate)… either sending the document direct to the pharmacy… or leaving the document to be collected from his surgery… there’s a small table where stuff is left for collection as and when.

This is arranged by phoning his Secretarial Service and explaining what one wants… “no thanks, not an appointment just a… blah blah blah…”

Can you do this sort of thing at your surgery???
If your Doc still has you in her computer can the Med Traitant form be issued for you to collect… or whatever… as I’ve outlined above.

Incidentally, a 3-month delay for an appointment with one’s normal doctor seems way over the top… I count my blessings… phoned yesterday and got an appt for this Friday for OH… phew.