Medical certs and doctors charges

Redsquigy

My son was involved in a car accident recently and has been out of work. He has been getting medical certs from the doctor for Social Welfare and has been charging him €25 per cert every week. He has not had any money yet from Social Welfare. Can anybody tell me should the doctor be charging for these certs?

jos22

Redsquigy wrote: »

My son was involved in a car accident recently and has been out of work. He has been getting medical certs from the doctor for Social Welfare and has been charging him €25 per cert every week. He has not had any money yet from Social Welfare. Can anybody tell me should the doctor be charging for these certs?

yes. doctors charge a fee for medical certs etc and as far as I know the only way around it is to get a medical card

NUTLEY BOY

I thought that the department paid GPs an agreed fixed fee for each of those certs which they sign. Ask the department.

mrsbyrne

NUTLEY BOY wrote: »

I thought that the department paid GPs an agreed fixed fee for each of those certs which they sign. Ask the department.

Not if the patient doesn't have a medical card.

orchidsrpretty

Are you sure mrsbyrne? On all the Certs I get, it states that the gp will receive a fee for filling them in. Doesn't say anything about needing a medical card.
I have never been charged for the cert and don't have medical card. Maybe you should change gp?


From a quick google
http://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/Medical-Certification-Under-Social-Welfare-Legislation-Instr.aspx

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GP's are not allowed to charge a fee in respect of filling in a medical certificate for social welfare.

A Certifier may not:

• accept money or other consideration in connection with the issue of a medical certificate;

or

• make it a condition of the issue of a certificate that the patient should receive from him/her, and pay for, any medical advice, treatment, or medicine.

http://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/Medical-Certification-Under-Social-Welfare-Legislation-Instr.aspx

Balagan

You are not required to pay for a social welfare medical certificate as the Department pays the doctor an agreed fee. However, you may have to pay for the medical examination.
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/disability_and_illness/disability_benefit.html

mrsbyrne

orchidsrpretty wrote: »

Are you sure mrsbyrne? On all the Certs I get, it states that the gp will receive a fee for filling them in. Doesn't say anything about needing a medical card.
I have never been charged for the cert and don't have medical card. Maybe you should change gp?


From a quick google
http://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/Medical-Certification-Under-Social-Welfare-Legislation-Instr.aspx

I meant that unless you have a medical/GP card the GP would charge you for an exam. Obviously the GP can't issue a cert without examining the patient.

d9oiu2wk07blr5

The agreement that certifier's have with the DSP stipulates that they're to complete and issue free of charge the medical certificates/medical report forms. They're not supposed to charge for the examination that goes with the certification.

tenifan

My GP charges €5 per cert. This is to satisfy an employer's demand (employer requires weekly certs). Not sure of the arrangements for social welfare certs. However, €25 is slightly ridiculous.

Is you son being examined by the doctor every week? Surely if the doctor knows he'll be out of work for x number of weeks, he or she can simply rubber-stamp the certs and charge no more than a fiver.

doctorjohn

PRSI certs (aka social welfare certs) are used by an employee to claim back some illness benefit via their previous PRSI contributions to the state. Some employers may process that request for their employees, but most leave it to the employee to process it themselves directly, as they feel it is their employees' affair and not theirs.

The state, prsi dept of social welfare, later on, pays the GP a fee for each PRSI cert processed through them. €8.

This PRSI cert is free to the patient at the point of being issued - in the GP surgery. No fee should be charged for same, and definitely no fee should be paid by the patient for same. This is regardless of whether the patient has a medical card or not.

However fees are to be paid to the in the following situations

1) Where someone has no medical card, AND, a consultation is required for the GP to satisfy him/herself to be in a position to certify that they have examined a patient, and that the patient is unfit for work.
A standard consultation fee would normally apply here. There is no charge for the PRSI cert. If a private first cert is also issued here, there is usually no additional fee to the consultation fee. The charge is for the consultation to be able to certify. This usually applies to the issuing of a first PRSI cert. Subsequent ,follow on, PRSI certs (if still required) may not necessitate a full consultation and it would not be correct to charge a fee for same.

2) Subsequent certs. Where an employer insists on a "work place" certificate (aka a private cert) in addition to the PRSI cert. The practice is not paid for same and is entitled to charge their fee for same. This is irrespective of whether someone has a medical card or not. This is a cost imposed on the patient by the employer to meet their HR needs. This cost has not been imposed by the GP. The GP is just charging for non PRSI, non medical card work.

A reasonable employer should accept sight of, and a photocopy of the actual PRSI cert. This would meet their HR needs and not impose a cost in the doctors surgery for such a private cert.

I advise all my patients seeking a private cert, in addition to the PRSI cert, to ask their employer to accept sight of and make a copy of the PRSI cert. This is so as not to impose extra unnecessary cost on my patient (their employee).

Some employers accede to such requests. Some don't. However, if the employer insists on making their employees obtain private certs (in addition to copies of the PRSI) it is correct that the practice charge for same.

Please ask your employer to consider this fact, if they are insisting on extra, separate private certs, as these extra certs incur a cost on you, which is hard to bear, particularly at a time when one is out of paid employment.

If anyone has a difficulty explaining this to their employer, please feel free to print this post and bring it to their HR person. It might just save you money.

All activity in the GP practice has to be paid for by someone. GPs surgeries are not state run enterprises, and to meet the wages and overheads, all practice activity has to pay for itself. Otherwise, just like a centra, petrol station, solicitors or engineers office, we will trade insolvently and go under.

Your employer, not your GP, holds the key here, to saving you on costs.

tenifan

doctorjohn wrote: »

All activity in the GP practice has to be paid for by someone. GPs surgeries are not state run enterprises, and to meet the wages and overheads, all practice activity has to pay for itself.

<snip>

Your employer, not your GP, holds the key here, to saving you on costs.

A very good post, except for the last couple of points here.

We're talking about someone being charged €25 for a slip of paper, most likely written by the receptionist and rubber stamped by the GP.

The key to saving money is (1) by all means, explain the situation to the employer to reduce the frequency of the certs and (2) run 100 miles away from any GP who attempts to charge €25 for such a cert.

The GP already got decent consultation fees, so to charge €25 for 2-3 minutes follow up by one of his/her admin staff per week is nothing short of disgraceful. But nice work if you can get it. I'd advise the op to shop around as I can tell you for a fact my GP only charges €5.

Redsquigy

Doctorjohn I appreciate your very detailed reply. His employer is ok with the certs and has no problem. It is the cert for the social welfare I have the problem with. He was with the GP the day after the accident and got a cert for work and also one for the Social Welfare. He is on a weekly cert for social welfare now but he has not seen the doctor since but is being charged €25 every time he sees the secretary for his cert. He did not have the money last week and she said she would give it to him anyway but would take a note that he owes the €25. I have told him to go back into the doctor but he said it will cost him €50. He has severe back pain and does a lot of heavy lifting in work so obviously he cannot go back until such time as the pain is gone.