Social security minister Claude Haagen decided on a price for psychotherapy sessions to bring to an end discussions between psychotherapists and the national health fund.  Photo: Matic Zorman

Social security minister Claude Haagen decided on a price for psychotherapy sessions to bring to an end discussions between psychotherapists and the national health fund.  Photo: Matic Zorman

After years of disagreements between the CNS and Fapsylux on the price and reimbursement rate of psychotherapy sessions, social security minister Claude Haagen (LSAP) has proposed to set the price to €144 a session.

The minister submitted a draft grand-ducal regulation to the council of government, in which a therapy session of 50 to 60 minutes should have a determined price. “The insured have had a need for professional support through psychotherapy for a long time,” said Haagen in a press release on 16 December. “After five years of negotiations, it is time for the insured to finally have access to an adequate coverage for psychotherapy sessions.”

At the start of the year, the psychotherapist union Fapsylux had recommended to professionals to ask for €175/hour--a price considered too high by the patient rights group Patientevertriedung. The CNS had wanted a price of €120 per session.

Discussions on the subject had started in 2017. A first failure of the negotiations in 2018 led to a three-month mediation which did not lead to conciliation. In 2019, the social security minister had the grand ducal regulation of 12 February 2021 drawn up, triggering the next procedural step of determining the acts of the nomenclature and related tariffs.

Negotiations resumed in March 2021, and the two parties agreed, according to a Fapsylux document of 9 August 2022, on several issues, such as the reimbursement of three sessions before a decision was taken on the coverage of treatment by the CNS. On 15 December 2022, Haagen stated that “it is enough” and that he would set the fee.

Haagen has asked the CNS to finalise the necessary statutory changes, so that psychotherapy services can be covered by the health insurance once the regulations are in force, the ministry said.