Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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579. To ask the Minister for Health the action he is taking to address the widely reported practice of general practitioners charging medical card holders for international normalised ratio, INR, testing; if a medical card holder can be refunded by his Department or the Health Service Executive for such a charge; how this can be done; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46674/15]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Persons covered by the General Medical Services (GMS) Scheme should not be charged for routine phlebotomy services provided by their GP, or the Practice Nurse on behalf of the GP, which are required to either assist in the diagnosis of illness or the treatment of a condition. While INR blood tests are not mentioned specifically in the GMS contract, such tests are carried out free of charge by some general practitioners as a matter of course in their practices and I welcome this. This provides patients with an option of receiving this service locally in a primary care setting rather than attending an acute hospital. Warfarin testing is available free of charge in hospitals.

Consultation fees charged by GPs 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. The HSE is not in a position to refund the costs of such charges to patients.

The Department of Health and the HSE are cognisant of the need for a new contract with GPs that will help modernise our health service and develop a strengthened primary care sector and negotiations are underway with the IMO in this regard. The development of appropriate contractual arrangements in relation to the management of chronic conditions is amongst the significant issues to be considered during the contractual talks.