Doctolib is definitely having a bad summer. The main platform for making medical appointments in France is at the heart of several controversies calling into question its ability to direct its users to real health professionals. The site is all the more criticized as it has acquired, thanks to its help during the vaccination campaign against Covid-19 in France, a quasi-status of public service for which he does not take full responsibility.
The first act began on the weekend of August 20-21, when health professionals and patients accused Doctolib of offering its users “wellness practitioners” without specifying that they were not real healthcare professionals, which they believe would lead to potentially dangerous confusion for patients. The controversy grew when Internet users discovered that practitioners present on the platform, including several naturopaths, have dangerous practices, close to quackery and sectarian excesses.
Forced to react, the Doctolib group suspended, on Monday August 22, 17 profiles of naturopaths who highlighted their training with Thierry Casasnovas and Irène Grosjean, two influential personalities in the world of so-called alternative medicine but whose practices have been denounced for years. . On Tuesday, the Order of Physicians drove home the point by asking Doctolib “to strengthen its ethical rules for registering on its platform” in order to avoid participating in installing among its users “a confusion” between health professionals and disciplines without medical basis. “The reaction of the Order is what we expected, but we would have liked them to react before the controversy, not a posteriori, to be proactive and to check the profiles of the practitioners themselves”, underlines Pierre de Bremond d ‘Ars, general practitioner and president of (No)FakeMed, a collective that brings together health professionals fighting against disinformation, who actively participated in the sling against Doctolib.
A new separate site for well-being practitioners?
On Wednesday August 24, the platform then announced that it had taken a “first series of measures (…) aimed at strengthening its procedures for verifying and reporting referenced professionals”. Among them, the creation of a team dedicated to verifying the identities and presentation sheets of practitioners carrying out unregulated well-being activities (which represent 3% of practitioners on the site and 0.3% of appointments, depending on the platform).
Doctolib has also announced that it has modified its site, including its homepage, to explicitly mention that wellness practitioners are not health professionals. In fact, the search bar on the home page no longer tells its users that they will automatically be offered “a health professional”. But the site still provides access to well-being practitioners, including naturopaths, sophrologists, iridologists, quantum therapy psychoanalysts, etc. It is only once a user opens one of these profiles that a box specifies: “This practitioner is not a health professional and exercises an unregulated profession.”
“The unregulated professions present on Doctolib offer acts that can take place in addition to conventional care, in order to contribute to the well-being of patients. Their diploma is not recognized by the State”, adds Doctolib in a box “find out more more”.
L’Express/Doctolib
“This undoubtedly allows them to get into the nails legally, but it is far from being sufficient on an ethical and deontological level, believes Pierre de Bremond D’Ars. First, the text is not sufficiently visible for users who read too quickly or who are inattentive because of the stress of being sick”. He recalls that the possibility of finding “wellness” practitioners on Doctolib at the same time as health professionals is equivalent to sharing a digital waiting room with people who are not involved in health, while the law prohibits, in a nursing home, to have a common waiting room with non-conventional professions.
“This gives these practitioners the ability to pass themselves off as health professionals”, warns the president of (No)FakeMed, who recalls that while some are well-intentioned, others are not, and can lead patients to practices. at risk, even sectarian aberrations, and harm their health in a lasting and lasting way. “The rapid reaction of the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Aberrations (Miviludes) is legitimate, because they are at the forefront of catastrophic situations in which certain patients find themselves after, for example, consulting reiki practitioners claiming to treat the autism, or naturopaths who offer to “cure” homosexuality, etc.”
So many reasons why the (No)FakeMed collective is calling on Doctolib to create another site that would only bring together well-being practitioners, with a new name, another color code and a new database. “We ask that they separate the two: on the one hand, health professionals on Doctolib, with the implementation of profile verification and, in the event of concern, a report to the Orders who will take care of the files in hand and, on another site, everything else: osteopathy, hypnosis, reiki etc., suggests Pierre de Bremond D’Ars Doctolib must live up to its task, which consists of providing care and health to patients, not to steer them towards practices that are sometimes folkloric or unsuitable.”
Several complaints filed against two fake child psychiatrists
The criticisms calling on Doctolib to strengthen its profile verification system appeared all the more justified since the investigation unit of Radio France revealed, Friday, August 26, that an investigation was opened in July for “illegal practice of medicine” against two people who posed as child psychiatrists on Doctolib. A complaint was filed by a mother of two who had made an appointment on the platform with what she thought was a real doctor. While trying to get a prescription for Ritalin, a drug for her children with attention deficit disorder (ADHD), the mother was alerted by the disturbing speech of the psychiatrist, but also technical problems during videoconference and a suspicious care sheet.
The Council of the Order of Physicians of Hérault also filed a complaint for “illegal practice of medicine” and Doctolib, considering itself “victim of fraud”, for its part filed a complaint against X for illegal practice of medicine and usurpation of title. The two fake child psychiatrists would have provided consultations, before the platform stopped their subscription and deleted their profile in early July, explained to AFP the president of the Council of the Order of Physicians of Hérault, Dr. Philippe Cathala . “We were shocked by the lack of control of practitioners by Doctolib. They did, then, delete the profile and stop the subscription, but we are surprised by the registration process on this platform. It should be strengthened”, he warned.
Doctolib wished to recall that, since the creation of the site in 2013, the platform has been the victim on four occasions of individuals who have created false profiles by usurping the identity of health professionals, out of nearly 250,000 practitioners referenced in total. . The platform announces that, from now on, no appointment can be made on Doctolib before the verification of the right to practice is effective. This is why the platform has decided to remove the 15-day period, which was previously granted to health professionals so that new residents can open the appointment process before the opening of their practice. , and which allowed several people to create fake doctor profiles.
“How many victims?”
For its part, the National Council of the Order of Physicians (CNOM) recalled that there is a very simple way to find out if a doctor has the right to practice: consult the CNOM website where all the practitioners are there. referenced, with their RPPS number, a number given to each doctor at the start of their career. The national Adeli directory, which lists regulated health professionals by mentioning their places of practice and their diplomas, whether they practice as a liberal or salaried, is another solution.
“We have the impression of having opened a Pandora’s box, regrets Pierre de Bremond d’Ars. This case of fake doctors is extremely worrying, because anyone with some computer skills could very well create fake accounts all the 15 days, who knows how many victims there have been? This shows the importance of having a platform reserved for healthcare professionals, with secure connections, for example with the automatic use of the Healthcare Professional Card (CPS Removing the 15-day deadline is a first step that was urgently needed, but they should have anticipated this problem.”
The president of the collective also notes that, until now, Doctolib indicated to health professionals that they “allowed themselves the possibility of requesting diplomas”, without however doing so systematically. “I don’t know their vetting process, but as they have now acquired quasi-public service status since the Covid vaccination, they have to live up to their responsibility, and if there are any holes in their racquet, they have to change it”, he insists. Asked by L’Express, the company has not yet answered our questions.