Written answers
Tuesday, 8 July 2025
Department of Health
General Practitioner Services
John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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887. To ask the Minister for Health the reason some GP surgeries are implementing charges on medical card holders for various tests such as blood tests, urine sample testing and changing of dressings as an example; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37876/25]
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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GPs are private practitioners, most of whom hold a GMS contract with the HSE for the provision of GP services without charge to medical card and GP visit card holders.
Section 11 of the GMS contract sets out that 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". Persons who hold a medical card or a GP visit card are not subject to any co-payments or other charges in respect of such services. There is no provision under the GMS GP contract for eligible patients to be charged for clinically necessary treatment.
In relation to blood tests, the issue of GPs charging GMS patients for this service is complex, given the numerous reasons and circumstances under which blood tests are taken. Clinical determinations as to whether a blood test should be taken to either assist in the diagnosis of illness or the treatment of a condition are made by the GP concerned. There is no provision under the contract for persons who hold a medical card or a GP visit card to be charged for clinically necessary blood tests.
Where a patient who holds a medical card or GP visit card believes he or she has been incorrectly charged for a service provided to assist in the diagnosis of illness or the treatment of a condition by his or her GP, then that patient should report the matter to their HSE Local Health Office. The local management, upon being notified of potential inappropriate charging of a GMS patient, shall contact the GP concerned and carry out an investigation into the complaint and will, where appropriate, arrange for a refund of charges incorrectly applied by that GP.
Fees charged by GPs outside the terms of the GMS contracts are a matter of private contract between the clinicians and their patients. Neither I nor the HSE have any role in relation to such fees.
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