The Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) has challenged claims that some of its members were treating too many private patients in breach of their contracts.
IHCA assistant general secretary Donal Duffy said the system used by the Health Service Executive for measuring consultants’ public and private work was “fundamentally flawed”.
The HSE is planning to write to more than 35 hospital consultants, warning them they face stiff financial penalties, under the terms of the their contracts, for treating too many private patients.
Consultants are paid a basic salary for treating public patients and they may also earn income from treating private patients.
Their contracts require that the ratio of public to private patients treated by doctors in public hospitals should range between 70:30 and 80:20 depending on the type of contract held by each doctor.
If private-practice rates persist at levels above the official thresholds, there is provision in the new contract for consultants to face financial penalties.
Speaking to RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme, Mr Duffy said: "We have consistently challenged the HSE on the system they use for measuring the activities consultants undertake.
“All of the activity in our emergency departments, where 1.2 million people are treated every year, is not counted as part of this exercise. And because these people are counted as public patients, it is understating the amount of public work consultants actually do. So the system is fundamentally flawed.”
If the HSE wished to adequately measure public-private ratios, Mr Duffy said, they must measure all of the activity. “They are not doing that and until such time as they do it properly, they can’t make those kinds of claims,” he said.
Under the terms of the contract consultants who are consistently in excess of the permitted private practice levels can be asked to contribute money earned above the official limits to a research fund in their hospital.
In a statement last night, the HSE said it could confirm that it was currently writing to a number of consultants in relation to contractual issues. It declined to comment further on the issue.