France's powerful national union of independent radiologists (Fédération nationale de médecins radiologues, FNMR) has called for other imaging stakeholders to join it against a proposed amendment to the draft bill for the 2017 social security budget (Projet de loi de financement de la sécurité sociale, PLFSS 2017) tabled by the government.
The FNMR has described amendment 762, which covers reimbursement for CT and MRI, as an "intolerable attack on private doctors, and in particular, on private radiologists" and has demanded that it be removed from the PLFSS 2017 draft text.
The amendment gives total power to the director-general of the National Medical Insurance Fund for Salaried Workers (Caisse nationale d'assurance maladie des travailleurs salariés, CNAMTS), and it also undermines the principle of conventions because remuneration for these imaging acts is based on such agreements, the FNMR noted in a statement.
"That which today only concerns radiologists and nuclear medicine doctors will tomorrow impact all doctors. [The amendment] throws into doubt any plans for multiannual negotiations on imaging. The threat of supplementary unilateral measures that can be imposed through this amendment will make it impossible to validate any agreement," FNMR stated.
These measures will affect hospitals and private clinics in terms of the fixed price of technical acts, according to FNMR, which in its statement calls on all doctors' unions and hospital federations to oppose the amendment and also requests its removal from draft law.
