Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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703. To ask the Minister for Health if a full medical card covers the cost of a blood test at a general practitioners in which the general practitioner has agreed and signed a patient's medical card application; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45544/18]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Under the terms of the current GMS contract, GPs are required to provide eligible patients with ''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." There is no provision under the GMS GP contract for persons who hold a medical card or GP visit card to be charged for routine phlebotomy services provided by their GP which are required to either assist in the diagnosis of illness or the treatment of a condition.

The HSE has advised GPs that where a blood test forms part of the investigation or necessary treatment of a patient’s symptoms or conditions, this should be free of charge for patients who hold a medical card or GP visit card. Notwithstanding this, I am aware that some GPs are charging GMS patients for phlebotomy services in some circumstances.

This is a matter of concern for me as it has long been the position, under successive Governments, that no user charges should apply to GP services provided to GMS and GP visit card patients. If a patient who holds a medical card or GP visit card believes he or she has been incorrectly charged for routine phlebotomy services by his or her GP, then that patient should report the matter to their HSE Local Health Office.

If the patient in question has applied for, but not yet been approved, for a medical card, then he/she would not be entitled to receive services under the medical card scheme until such time as the application has been processed and approved by the HSE.