Patients visiting pharmacies equipped with telemedicine booths in France are being offered paid options, costing between 5 and 20 euros, to skip the waiting line and see a doctor faster. The practice has angered patients and alarmed health authorities, who say access to care should never depend on ability to pay.
The row erupted after a social media post, viewed more than 4.4 million times, revealed last weekend that a Tessan booth displayed a 5-euro option allowing a patient to move to the front of the queue. Tessan booths are installed in 1,600 pharmacies across France, and the wait to use one can sometimes stretch to several hours.
One patient's experience
Laura, a patient in the Ille-et-Vilaine region who has no regular family doctor, used the paid option in September 2026. She told the news site actu.fr that when staff offered her the chance to pay 5 euros she agreed, and that she watched the number of patients ahead of her fall away within minutes. Her total wait came to 15 minutes.
Looking back on the experience, she said she had asked herself whether she had been that much of a pushover, adding that she had simply wanted to get out of the pharmacy as quickly as possible. She described the arrangement as the privatization of health care in its purest form, and said it was disgraceful for people who cannot afford to pay for priority treatment.
Tessan defends the wording
Julien Cutolo, chief executive of Tessan, told actu.fr that the wording displayed on the booth's screens had been clumsy. He insisted that paying customers do not go ahead of everyone else in the line. According to him, the 5 euros instead redirects the patient to a separate virtual waiting room staffed by doctors who act as the company's own designated treating physicians, known internally as "e-traitants."
Why pharmacies turned to telehealth booths
Telemedicine booths have spread through French pharmacies in recent years as a response to what are known in France as medical deserts, areas where residents struggle to find a family doctor because of shortages and the closure of local surgeries. The booths allow a patient to consult a doctor by video link from inside the pharmacy, with a pharmacist on hand to help and to provide basic equipment such as a blood pressure cuff or a stethoscope during the call.
Other providers follow suit
Charging for faster access is not limited to Tessan. According to the trade website Acuité, other companies including Qare, Livi and MédecinDirect also offer paid services costing between 5 and 20 euros to secure a quicker appointment. One competitor, Medadom, says it does not charge any fee to speed up access, though it notes that some of its partner sites remain free to set their own prices.
What the fees actually pay for
The extra charges paid by patients do not cover the medical consultation itself but the technology and booking service used to arrange it. A teleconsultation currently costs 25 euros, compared with 30 euros for an in-person appointment at a doctor's surgery.
Health authorities voice concern
The trend has worried specialists in French health policy. L'Assurance Maladie, the country's public health insurance body, has stated that a paid option should never be used to speed up access to care. The Conseil National de l'Ordre des Médecins, the professional body that oversees the conduct of doctors in France, has also reaffirmed its firm opposition to these added costs, according to the report.
