HSE urged 'to make people aware' of Doctor’s Visit Cards change

The HSE has been urged to step up its efforts to publicise the Doctor’s Visit Cards in order to increase their take-up.

The HSE has been urged to step up its efforts to publicise the Doctor’s Visit Cards (DVC) in order to increase their take-up.

Last October the income threshold for those applying for a DVC was raised by 10%, in accordance with the ethos of Slaintecare - that is, that access to healthcare should be dependent on means.

However, in the three-month period from April to June this year just 863 people were granted DVC eligibility, an increase of less than 1% on the figure of 508,859 DVCs in circulation at the end of March.

Given there are over 2,500 general practitioners in operation in Ireland, that translates as an increase of just one card for every three primary care physicians in the country.

The figures were released to Fianna Fáil’s primary care spokesperson John Brassil following a parliamentary question to Minister for Health Simon Harris.

Mr Brassil said the return on the State’s investment “seems incredibly low” and added that it is his belief that a huge cohort of people who are now eligible for free GP visits are simply unaware that the service exists.

“I think it is incumbent on the HSE to step up its efforts to make people aware of this change,” Mr Brassil said.

A DVC allows eligible people to visit a participating GP for free. It is a separate scheme from the general medical services card (GMS - the medical card) which allows for free care across primary and secondary services such as hospital visits.

As at April 2019, the weekly threshold for a single person living alone to access a Doctor’s Visit Card was €304, a 10% hike on the €276 threshold that applied pre-Budget 2019.

One GP, based in the southeast of the country, explained that the takeup of new Doctor’s Visit Cards at their surgery was not possible to separate from the increase in medical cards as the statutory fee owed to the surgery was the same regardless of which scheme is being availed of.

“It doesn’t matter to our payment so it’s not listed,” the GP said. “That fee is calculated based on the average visitation rate for a particular age group.”

This means that DVCs deliver free surgery consultations regardless if a patient has one visit or many.

“Drugs aren’t covered by the visit card, so that expense is still there. The increase in threshold is good optics - it’s not an onerous imposition on the State and they look like the good guys. But the drugs are what’s expensive, and they aren’t covered,” the doctor said.

The DVC scheme was introduced by the Fianna Fáil Government in 2006, Mr Brassil noted.

The doctor we spoke to said they couldn’t tell for sure but they “wouldn’t think there’s been any increase” in the number of DVC visits to their surgery. “There certainly hasn’t been a dramatic one,” they said.