Speech therapy: concerns over reimbursement of care for thousands of children treated in medical-psychological centers

For six years, Clémence Charvin had been accompanying her 12-year-old son, who suffers from dyslexia, dysorthography, and dysphasia, every week to Isabelle Dumeny, a private speech therapist in Beaugency (Loiret). But at the end of July, ^Ms. Dumeny ended these sessions. She fears that the health insurance will no longer cover them, or even ask her to reimburse for care already provided, on the grounds that her patient is also being followed by a medical-psychological center (CMP), in which, in theory, this discipline is present. The origin of her fear: the announced tightening of a health insurance rule to avoid "double coverage," which has caused a wave of panic among professionals and the families concerned.

The CMPs, structures attached to hospitals, offer multidisciplinary follow-up to more than 350,000 children and adolescents suffering from mental disorders: child psychiatrist, neuropsychologist, psychomotor therapist, etc. Speech therapists are part of this panel of flat-rate care covered by Social Security, according to a 1992 decree, recalled during the reform of psychiatry in 2022. But, in the field, very few teams include speech therapists, in a general context of shortage, aggravated by unattractive salaries . However, many CMP patients have problems with neurodevelopment, language, entry into learning, or autistic disorders, which require speech therapy support.

You have 77.19% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.