Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 582: To ask the Minister for Health if he will advise definitively the position regarding general practitioners charging for filling in confidential health reports, as requested by colleges, from medical card patients; if his attention has been drawn to the extent of this practice; the steps he is taking to have this and any other inappropriate charging ended; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30772/12]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Section 11 of the General Medical Services (GMS) GP Capitation Contract, which was introduced in 1989, provides that the medical practitioner shall provide for eligible persons, on behalf of the Health Service Executive, all proper and necessary treatment of a kind usually undertaken by a general practitioner and not requiring special skill or experience of a degree or kind which general practitioners cannot reasonably be expected to possess. GPs who hold GMS contracts with the HSE must not seek or accept money from medical card or GP visit card holders for services covered under the GMS contract. The GMS contract also stipulates that fees are not paid to GPs by the HSE in respect of certain medical certificates which may be required, for example, "under the Social Welfare Acts or for the purposes of insurance or assurance policies or for the issue of driving licences".

Consultation fees charged by general practitioners to private patients and to GMS patients outside the terms of the GMS contract are a matter of private contract between the clinicians and the patients. While I have no role in relation to such fees, I would expect clinicians to have regard to the overall economic situation in setting their fees.