Complaints have been made against 14 GPs for charging patients for blood tests, Minister of State at the Department of Health Alex White has revealed.
Two of the doctors investigated by the Health Service Executive refunded money, while another GP has stopped charging for blood tests after a new doctor joined the practice, he said.
Mr White said two more GPs were found to have legitimately charged for phlebotomy services as the test involves were not routine.
The HSE is continuing to address the issue, he told TD Anthony Lawlor in response to a parliamentary question.
Mr White said that GPs were not allowed to charge medical card patients for blood tests where these were routine and needed to assist in a diagnosis. “If part of that proper and necessary treatment includes routine phlebotomy, GPs must provide such services free of charge under the terms of their General Medical Services (GMS)contract.”
He advised patients who believed they had been inappropriately charged for routine phlebotomy services to seek a refund from their GP.
Last year, Mr White’s predecessor Roisin Shortall ordered the HSE to write to every GP in the country to remind them they were not allowed to charge medical card holders for basic services.
This followed controversy over individual cases in which patients alleged they had been charged up to €20 a go for regular blood tests. One 90-year-old woman in Cork was being charged €15 each time for her regular blood tests for warfarin, Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher said.
The Irish Medical Organisation maintains that services such as routine blood tests, warfarin monitoring, 24-hour blood pressure monitoring and women’s and men’s health clinics are not covered under GPs’ GMS contract with the HSE.
While it hasn’t advised doctors to charge for these services, it said it was up to GPs “whether they wish to charge or how they wish to charge”.
Earlier this month, in a submission to the Department of Health, the organisation claimed that that general practice was at breaking point as a result of Government cutbacks and the increasing demands placed on doctors as a result of the recession.
