French medical charges

This not likely to be of any interest to someone outside France. But you never know?

Penny wrote:

"Hi Alex,

I know I normally only pop up when there's a beauty contest but we saw this article:

http://www.charentelibre.com/extranet_en/index.php?action=current&id_edition=97&pos=2

How does this compare with what's happening in the Languedoc?
Is it getting more difficult to find a doctor , dentist or optician who is operating (?) under Sector 1?"

I replied:

"I usually attend doctors with Jan because my French is a little better than hers, so I get to visit quite a few surgeries/consulting rooms. I wasn't fully aware of pricing differences between doctors but I was aware that they would often post details of their charges in their waiting rooms and that they often referred to 'standard' pricing. My knee jerk reaction to your question is that I suspect the doctors that we see price under Secteur 1. This is a relatively poor area and our specialist doctors seem to charge in the region of 30 - 40 euros depending on what they do during the visit. A 'hello goodbye' visit costs say 30 euros but the same doctor charged 45 euros when he had taken a skin sample for examination and stitched the wound. Fairly reasonable I would say. Having said all that I'll pay a bit more attention in future and let you know."

Penny replied:

"What brought it to our attention first was when we contacted our optician ('opthalmologiste') for an appointment and we were informed that she no longer adhered to the Convention Medicale de la Securite Sociale and that therefore we would have to pay 40 Euros for a consultation, whereas our 8 year old son who was not an existing patient would have to pay 50 Euros for an eye test (none of which was covered under the normal system, not even under the insurance complementaire). Basically she's gone private which apparently seems to be increasingly the trend."