GPs ‘unlikely’ to repay State €1.8m
The shocking news came as it emerged the repayments are likely to be written off as part of the present contract negotiations between the Department of Health and GPs.
The Government now concedes the decision on the €1.8m repayments will depend in part on “contractual review negotiations.”
The revelation was made at a sitting of the Public Accounts Committee yesterday. A review found overpayments to GPs originally amounted to €6.5m. GPs claimed though they were underpaid €4.7m.
The issue of deceased or “ghost” medical card holders emerged after the Controller and Auditor General (C&AG) said in 2001 the list should be updated.
It emerged when over 100,000 patients’ names were removed that around a third (29,165) were over 70s who had died.
GPs though refused to cough up, claiming that they had been underpaid for other patients like newborn babies and teenagers who were eligible for a card.
The controversial overpayments now look never to be returned to taxpayers, the C&AG admitted yesterday.
But Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins was outraged. He said the health system was “absolutely haunted”. Allowing the GP repayments to be off-loaded was a ridiculous way of doing business, added the TD.
PAC chairman and TD Michael Noonan said he hoped that health chiefs would get other concessions in contract negotiations for dropping the repayments debacle.
A Department of Finance briefing recorded at the Oireachtas yesterday read:
“The minister has been informed that decisions regarding next steps will need to be informed by an analysis of the degree of under/over payment by individual GPs, as well as other considerations such as the contractual review negotiations, the potential administrative workload in dealing with recovery from repayments to individual GPs.
“The matter will be kept under review to ensure that outstanding overpayments are eliminated where appropriate,” said the department.
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