2024-03-31 03:30:06
This had been brewing for several weeks, but it was when the final distribution of the budget envelope was discovered that the conflict between public and private hospitals came to light. A “arbitration that goes in the right direction”, welcomed the first, who will see their “rates” (i.e. the amount reimbursed by Health Insurance for each type of hospital stay) increased by 4.3% in 2024, in medicine, surgery and obstetrics (as well as the non-profit sector); a decision “unfair”, “a major mistake”, “an untenable equation”players in the lucrative private sector are upset, for whom these activities are only increased by 0.3%.
The announcement of the new prices by the Minister for Health, Frédéric Valletoux, on March 26, was eagerly awaited, while all establishments have been warning for months about the budgetary difficulties and deficits they are facing, first and foremost. place because of inflation. This announcement comes every year on the eve of spring, and both public and private this time called for a 10% increase in prices, to correspond to the real costs of care. Hope was nevertheless limited, with Health Insurance spending already set well below, at +3.2% in the 2024 Social Security budget.
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The increase in prices will represent 3.2 billion euros more for the establishments’ revenues, detailed the government, thus defending its desire to“to support the resumption of activity and the response to the health needs of the French”. And this, with a more support in medicine, pediatrics or even maternity wards, transplants and palliative care.
“There has never been such a gap”
At a time when the “health debt” represents 3.5 million stays which have not been possible since the Covid-19 crisis, according to the latest figures from the French Hospital Federation (FHF), the government hopes to push hospitals to increase the pace, with an increase in activity set at + 2.5% for all establishments in 2024. An objective ” ambitious “, we concede to the FHF, while hospital activity only returned to its pre-crisis level (2019) at the end of 2023. Other healthcare representatives already doubt whether such a leap is realistic.
But in the ranks of the clinics, it is above all this differentiated treatment which ignited the powder. “It’s extremely shocking, there has never been such a gap”, reacts Lamine Gharbi, boss of the Federation of Private Hospitalization, which represents 1,030 for-profit establishments. In 2023, prices increased by 5% for clinics, and by 7% for the public hospital.
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