Abolition of incidental expenses: reimbursement requests will explode

Veronica Prince

Wednesday, 12 July 2017 21:03

UPDATE
Wednesday, 12 July 2017 21:09

Look at this article

Six months after the abolition of incidental fees, the phones of the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec does not dérougissent not. To this day, the RAMQ has nearly 3,000 calls from patients who wonder about the legality of the invoice, shifted by their doctor.

Last march, TVA News had contacted the government agency to know the number of denunciations aimed at health professionals who are needed still for incidentals, despite the ban. While 34 doctors were under the magnifying glass this time, they are more than a hundred today to be the subject of an official accusation. Refund requests explode.

In three months, they went from 1 300 to 2 700. The RAMQ should check them all to determine their validity.

Our team is made near a hospital and a clinic in the city of Quebec. On-site, we have encountered patients who ask many questions about fees that are still required.

“Currently, there is a lot of confusion, said one of them. Perhaps there should be more publicity, campaigns of information.”

Another patient said that he had to pay $ 60 to his clinic recently for an examination related to his diabetes.

“I am disappointed with the attitude of some doctors who continue to abuse the system and the good faith of Quebecers who already pay handsomely for a health network which should be accessible free of charge,” said Pierre Blain, of the provincial group of users committees.

His organization refers regularly contested cases to the RAMQ.

“In all the cases we’ve seen, we were convinced that it was for incidentals that were not to be charged to patients,” he said.

Several folders related to exams optometric. The Council for the protection of the sick also received several more calls about bills bad.

“It shows yet another patent, which is super nice when it is announced: we will abolish the incidental costs! But these are not all incidental charges and especially not those that a lot of citizens are calling for, such as reports, ultrasounds or scans,” said Paul Brunet.

For the moment, impossible to know what will happen to the doctors offenders. The RAMQ will only be able to reveal the sanctions at the end of the reporting fiscal year 2017-2018, in march next.