What’s the point of such an injunction at the top of a website dedicated to teleconsultation?
It’s not about stirring up controversy. That said, a truncated negotiation between the health insurance (CNAM) and the representatives of all the medical unions led to the signing of “rider #6” to the medical convention, on June 14, 2018, an aberration installing complete confusion between simple advice dispensed by a doctor over the phone… and a genuine remote medical consultation, rightly entitled “teleconsultation” and the only legitimate one to bear this title.

The result is a serious prejudice that confuses different concepts and issues: Firstly, it affects the patient, through the incomplete nature of the service he or she is supposed to receive; secondly, it affects the doctor, by degrading his or her image and the scope of his or her services; and thirdly, it affects the health-care financer, by leading him or her to overpay for what is not (always) useful, and to underpay – or ignore – what he or she should be paying for systematically. Admittedly, during the Covid wave, which led to a national containment strategy, the process occasionally provided undeniable services, but monastic isolation has long since disappeared. Telecounseling”, on the other hand, has taken on a life of its own, has been given an unjustified title and has become totally misused.

In 2024, it will be possible for a doctor to issue a prescription over the phone, or even prescribe biological tests, a scanner or other complex and costly investigations… and even sign a medical leave… to an individual he has never met and will never meet.

Without wishing to sound like a Cassandra, reducing the doctor’s service to the conversational phase of the medical consultation exposes him to the risk of eventually losing all legitimacy. In this exercise alone, ChatGPT and its ilk will soon be far better than he is, and more available 24/7/52. The practitioner’s place in primary care medicine is in danger of shrinking.

Added to this is the non-trivial question of fees. The option has been taken to pay the doctor the same rate for a simple conversation lasting a few minutes as for a medical teleconsultation involving a physical examination, which requires more time and involves greater structural costs (assistant, equipment, software, internet connection)… totally ignored by the health insurance scheme, a fault against the spirit.

And while we’re on the subject of savings, let’s not forget the approach – highly beneficial for the patient and a source of substantial savings for the community – whereby the general practitioner can contact his or her specialist colleague during the session, obtaining the much-needed clarification at a moment’s notice! In medicine, the sooner we act, the better the patient.

NO, NO AND NO:
Teleconsultation, teleconsultation and tele-expertise are not interchangeable.
Let’s call a spade a spade.