French hospital blacklists patients who do not turn up to appointments

ONE HOSPITAL DIVISION ALONE SAW 1,000 NO-SHOWS IN 2024 A hospital in northern France is trialling a new punitive system to deal with a lack of available appointments – blacklisting those who

do not turn up for the scant spaces.  Patients who fail to notify Argentan hospital (Orne) that they will miss an appointment – leading to a no show – twice, will be ‘blacklisted’ and

unable to make a further appointment, administrative staff announced at the end of last month.  “This is an educational measure to make people understand that negligence has an impact,” said

the hospital’s director Stéphane Péan to local media France Bleu. “These missed appointments are insufferable, because alongside them, we have lots of other people requesting an

appointment, for whom the delays are sometimes very long,” he added.  Patients who reasonably cancel their appointment in advance are not impacted, nor are those who fail to show up for an

exceptional circumstance – although what is classed as acceptable is defined on a case by case basis by the hospital. The hospital has set up a text service that reminds patients a few days

in advance of any upcoming appointments.  MASSES OF MISSED APPOINTMENTS  Although the measure seems extreme, the hospital points to evidence that too many people take the services for

granted.  Last year, the radiology department alone saw 1,000 no-shows.  “All the procedures we could do for these patients are now fewer procedures for the hospital… because we're here

to help the population, we want to optimise our scheduling,” said manager of the department Bruno Teixeira.  Other departments including ophthalmology and pneumology are facing staffing

shortages, having to prioritise appointments for existing patients and children, with slots unavailable for many others – failure to turn up to an appointment in these units prolongs this

delay, say hospital staff.  ‘RABBIT’ TAX THROWN OUT OF BUDGET The 2025 healthcare budget initially included a framework for a ‘taxe lapin’, a fiscal penalty for no-shows at hospitals and

doctor surgeries in light of the increased burden on the healthcare sector.  The budget would have allowed for parliamentarians to introduce a law including a no-show tax at some point in

the year, which MPs and Senators would subsequently vote on.  However, although Senators and MPs voted to include this measure in the budget, it was thrown out by France’s Constitutional

Council in its reading of the budget before it was passed at the end of February.  The council cited that the plans - which would require patients to pre-give bank card details in advance so

the charge could be levied in case of a no-show – could restrict healthcare access due to the digitisation required.  This concern was also mirrored by MPs from far-left La France

Insoumise.  The council said that in principle the idea of a penalty for no-show patients was not unconstitutional, but that more thought needed to be given to how it would be implemented to

ensure people in France do not lose their constitutional right of access to healthcare.