Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 14 November 2013

Public Accounts Committee

2012 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 22 - Eligibility for Medical Cards

12:10 pm

Mr. Patrick Burke:

Medical cards are centralised through the central reimbursement service. Therefore, as well as determining eligibility, we also have the reimbursement function to the 6,500 contractors who provide 80 million transaction items in the primary care field. The total card of the medical card and primary care scheme is approximately €2.4 billion. That is our global figure, but there are economies of scale as we centralise medical cards because we are using part of the machinery and systems that are in place for reimbursement. Our operating costs for 2012, as a percentage of our total spend, were approximately 1.13% of that. In 2011, the cost was 1.02%. If we draw a comparison -----