I just read the article of this title, arr’d in my inbox today, published by France Insider.
'healthcare professionals and related actors account for roughly 28% of cases but nearly 73% of the amounts involved.’
’ The French national auditor the Cour des comptes estimates overall healthcare fraud at between €4 billion and €4.5 billion annually.
The organisation of the French healthcare system plays a central role in enabling these practices.’
With such enormous sums being lost in fraud, taken alongside the monumental administration structure to run the system, it seems to me that FR would benefit from amending the health care system into one similar to GB and ES [possibly others] where health services are paid for from general taxation and no money is involved in delivering treatment on the day.
Like the huge PPE fraud that cost the NHS many, many millions? And which Baroness Moine has yet to pay back I believe.
Apparently according to NHS report “ However, fraud and other economic crime against the NHS is a real problem, causing a loss of £1.29 billion a year according to our latest estimates.”
Maybe not €4million, nut not insignificant. Where there’s money there’s fraud!
That is true. But note that the very structure of the FR system is deemed a major factor to fraud on a continuous basis - and by health service professionals to the tune of 73%.
The sad thing is that the body responsible for auditing France’s finances has identified and described widespread, systematic fraud in the health service, over 70% of it by health professionals.
My take on the UK NHS is that the diminution of the service is mostly to do with political interference and ‘policy’, as opposed to outright criminality, as seems to be the case in FR, made possible, as the analysis states, by the very structure of the contributory system.
On TF1 the other night, this particular dept has millions of euros of health fraud logged. Take each dept of the country and it will add up into billions eventually, a lot of carried out by health professionals in all sorts of fields too.
It already is. The audit identified €3.5-4 billions lost. The system lends itself to fraud. Organised crime is cashing in. A case emerged of payments being made in the name of a deceased dentist!
My first encounter with having to pay actual money for treatment involved a charge for a blood sample taken by a nurse. The charge, my contribution, was small … €5 + XX cents. I recall the cents part being an awkward number such as 61c or 53c. Small change - shrapnel - was involved.
I was surprised to find that this two-nurse practice, in a health clinic, did not take debit cards. Cash or cheque. I have written one 4-figure cheque in the five and a half years I’ve been in FR. Who writes a chq for €5,XX? I had enough cash to get within a few cents of the total. There was nothing but for the nurse, in some irritation, to write off the balance.
I’ve opined in the past - if the FR were to start a national heath service today I doubt they’d do it the same way again. Or, maybe. for sheer love of ‘docamenti/papeles’, they would!
Our local nurses are in the same building as the medical practice but they’re not in the same system and run as a separate entity. From what I gather they seem to be self-employed. They also take cash or cheque only.
Our local nurses and doctors take cheques. They will take cash only if absolutely necessary, but prefer not to.
So my cheque book is still very much in use. Thankfully the Bank notices when one’s cheque book is running low… and send replacement ones automatically.
I don’t believe just that simply by changing to a UK type system would solve the problem. Looking a global per capita data would suggest changing moving a total insurance based system such as the Swiss system. Believe me that is expensive.
There would be a ‘massive’ cost to changing the system and more vigorous process would yield a far greater net return.
From talking to a friend who is a practitioner ,checks and audits are now much more frequent. He was recently audited, the result was he was owed about €10k along with the nearly €100k he is owed by the justice system.
With increasing use of AI more fraud is being detected and cases are being brought to court. .
P.S.
It is like the old joke about asking directions “If I were you I would not start from here”
If I’d lived locally, yes. But it’s 90 mins round trip to my MT’s clinic, where those nurses are. I asked the nurse doing my post op care, she visiting me at home daily, about moving to a Dr in Vire but she was adamant that I shouldn’t give up my present M.T. as all the M.T.s in Vire had closed their lists. As have the dentists.
I am in fear and trepidation that he’s going to retire on me. He must be ever so close …
As I know from selling small value items - a couple of packets of self-tappers or a litre of white spirit - the most expensive service of crediting to a business a/c is cash. Then come cheques …
I set up a shed at the boatyard with a goodly selection of that sort of stuff. I put up a card index. A yottie could fill out a card and then simply note the item on his card. This went down very well.
On one card I saw writ, “It is so nice to be treated like a grown-up”.
I kept tabs on the cards. When the amount was sufficient to justify writing/banking a chq, for both parties, the account was cleared and a new card set up
Obviously those nurses couldn’t run that sort of tab but they are still paying maximum charges for banking these small sums, unless FR banking has some sort of system for nurses and the like, dealing in small sums.
