After Groupe Mutuel, it is Helsana’s turn to announce the cessation of reimbursements for stays of its insured persons in private or semi-private wards at the La Tour Hospital in Meyrin (GE). The cause: prices deemed too high. A situation that the director of the private establishment regrets.
Since September 2, beneficiaries of private or semi-private insurance with Helsana (supplementary hospital insurance) are no longer reimbursed for their stays at the La Tour Hospital in Meyrin (GE), it was revealed on Friday. The TimeThe second largest insurer in Switzerland justifies its decision by the fact that the rates charged by the La Tour Hospital are among the highest in Switzerland.
According to Helsana spokesperson Gaël Saillen, interviewed by the daily newspaper, price differences between establishments may exist, but the prices charged by the Hôpital de La Tour are among the highest in Switzerland and the insurer cannot accept them in view of the services provided.
This decision by Helsana echoes the withdrawal of Groupe Mutuel last April for the same reasons, judging the prices charged at the La Tour Hospital to be “above the market”. For its director Thomas Boyer, interviewed at the time by RTS, it was no longer possible “to endorse such abusive rates”.
>> Also read: “We can no longer support such abusive rates” at La Tour Hospital, defends the director of Groupe Mutuel
“There were no real negotiations”
“We regret this situation for the patients affected,” said Rodolphe Eurin, director of the La Tour Hospital, in Forum on Friday. “It’s a bit hasty to say that we are too expensive, given that the rates we apply are always rates that are in the agreements in force with insurance companies,” he explained.
“We were in discussions with Helsana to continue the partnership and we only had one offer, with the only request to accept it. There were no real negotiations,” said the man who has been running the clinic for almost six years.
The engineer by training believes that these “non-conventional” situations are always the most momentary and temporary possible”, indicating that he is working to try to find solutions with all the insurance companies with which the Hôpital de La Tour does not have a convention in force. “And this is the case with Groupe Mutuel and with Helsana too.”
The Geneva context criticized
In Geneva, the context is special, also argues the director of the second Geneva hospital. The share of financing from the Canton is lower than elsewhere in Switzerland and this lower commitment increases the bill by 30 to 40%, explains Rodolphe Eurin.
The director of the La Tour Hospital also regretted that the negotiations conducted with insurance companies in the context of complementary medicine too often focus on comfort services. According to him, policyholders take out private or semi-private insurance not to have Wi-Fi or a larger room, but because they want above all to have access to a quality institution that they trust.
La Tour Hospital is the only private establishment in French-speaking Switzerland with an emergency department open 7 days a week and 24 hours a day, intensive care and continuing care, as well as internal medicine and pneumology departments for acute care.
Interview by Coralie Claude
Web text: Jérémie Favre
