Telephone consultations with GPs no longer reimbursed

Belgium’s National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance, Inami, will no longer reimburse telephone consultations with general practitioners, it has announced.

The measure, which came into effect last week, will initially apply until the end of June.

In the meantime, a working group will draw up a clearer framework for remote consultations and propose measures to combat abuse.

Remote consultations with a doctor were essential during the Covid-19 crisis. Doctors received €11.93 per telephone session, with the patient paying just €2.

But this patient contribution was generally not collected in practice, as it was more expensive for the doctor to invoice and collect this cost remotely.

As a result, such a consultation earned the doctor around €10. In 2022, doctors billed 2.3 million telephone consultations to Inami, compared to 6.3 million a year later.

Federal health minister Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit), a key figure throughout the pandemic, estimated at the end of 2024 that at €10 per consultation, the cost of this system was too high, hence the need to change.

Nivelles hospital paediatrician Dr Emilie Poitoux told RTBF that she spends up to two hours a day on these calls, which she sees as essential.

“With telephone consultations I can give advice, sound the alert, recommend prescriptions and then set a date for a later meeting,” she said.

Brussels-based GP Dr Sarah Cumps added that time is needed to prepare the call and then follow it up.

Without these meetings, doctors’ waiting rooms would be overcrowded, patients would have even longer to wait, and the general standard of service would suffer, especially with the general shortage of doctors.

Lawrence Cuvelier, president of the GBO, the trade union representing French-speaking doctors in Belgium, added that while the government argues stopping reimbursements will save around €68 million, this money will only end up having to be used elsewhere.

He hopes that a solution will be found after June to allow patients to continue to be able to consult by phone at a minimal charge.