Medical analysis laboratories will "almost all" remain closed from Friday until Monday, for a four-day strike called by biologists' unions, who are very angry about the price cuts imposed on them by the health insurance system.
"Almost all medical biology laboratories will close," assured seven organizations representing the sector, both public and private, including the SNMB and SDBIO (liberal biologists) and the SNBH (hospital biologists) in a joint press release.
"It will be massive. The top leaders, the officials, we saw them, everyone was in agreement," Francois Blanchecotte, president of the SDBIO, stressed to AFP on Thursday. He claims to have received "100% positive responses" to this movement in an anonymous survey.
The biologists accuse the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM) of having "betrayed" a three-year conventional agreement (2024-2026) signed in June 2023, and of having decided during the summer, "without prior consultation" and in "the absence of a government", to reduce the prices of procedures by 9%, starting from September 11.
The conflict between the Cnam and the unions results from a demand for biological analyses that is significantly higher than expected in the first months of 2024 (+5.5% in volume).
The CNAM intends to maintain its planned budget for the year ($3.784 billion excluding Covid and certain specific expenses in 2024), which implies reducing certain rates. It assures that it only wants to "respect the terms" of the agreement, "which sets annual budgets."
According to joint figures provided by both parties, the health insurance system aims to recover some 120 million euros over the last four months of 2024. This represents a loss of revenue for biologists.
In the absence of a serving health minister, biologists have little hope of seeing the rates corrected quickly, but are calling for "a reopening of negotiations," as the agreement is based "on erroneous figures from the Cnam," Mr. Blanchecotte said.
For them, the situation "endangers" local laboratories and risks causing the closure of fragile sites, staff reductions or even reduced opening hours.
In a letter sent to the unions at the end of August, the director of the Cnam, Thomas Fatome, recalled that the number of laboratories and sampling sites is increasing, having "gone from 4,266 at the beginning of January 2023 to 4,421 at the end of May 2024."
The rates "will be subject to rediscussation" at the beginning of 2025 "depending on the observed dynamics," he wrote, not ruling out increases if "these were compatible or even necessary" to respect the budget.
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