New legislation to clamp down on outstanding hospital bills

MINISTER FOR Health James Reilly has told health insurers he intends to press ahead with new legislation that would make it easier for hospitals to be paid for procedures.

Mr Reilly made his feelings known to the insurance companies over outstanding bills of about €162 million at an end-of-year meeting.

Both the minister and the companies involved have agreed to set up a health insurance consultative forum to progress issues such as the collection of the income. The forum will meet on a regular basis in the new year.

Its main brief will be to tackle the issue of health insurance costs with premiums set to escalate again in the new year following the budget.

Minister of State Róisín Shortall has also expressed her dissatisfaction at the arrears, which have been blamed partially on hospital consultants not signing off on claim forms. She told The Irish Timesthat she was in favour of fining consultants who dragged their heels over payments.

Under current rules, health insurance companies will not reimburse hospitals for the accommodation costs of private patients treated in their facilities until consultants sign the overall claims, including the provision of clinical data on the treatment.

A report by the HSE found last June that some €76 million was outstanding from consultants, with one consultant alone, working in the Mercy Hospital in Cork, failing to sign off on €770,000 worth of claims.

Mr Reilly said he intended to press ahead towards “decoupling”, where the HSE can collect charges from private health insurance companies without needing the signature of a consultant.

According to the Department of Health, the move is being resisted by the insurance companies which stressed the need for a clinical sign-off for all the relevant information for the patients involved.

In a statement, the department said the level of outstanding charges was “unacceptably high”, and while there would always be a level of outstanding debt because of the timing differences as to when invoices were raised, it did not excuse the amount of money involved.

Separately, the HSE is currently undertaking a range of actions to address these issues, including setting targets for each hospital for the collection of charges that are being actively managed through monthly reporting and through rolling out electronic claims management in the 10 largest acute hospitals.

The Minister has also made it clear that any income which is owed will be collected.