Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 May 2017
395. Deputy Jack Chambers asked the Minister for Health if his attention has been drawn to the fact that private patients are being directed and pressurised to use their health insurance in public hospitals though the insurance is not required for their treatment; if this will cease; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25291/17]
View answerThe Health Act 1970 (as amended) provides that all persons ordinarily resident in the country are, subject to certain charges, eligible for to public in-patient hospital services. Although a proportion of activity in public hospitals involves the provision of care to private patients, the core purpose of the system is to provide services for public patients. Government policy is to ensure there is equitable access for public patients, that the proportion of private activity is appropriately controlled and that the costs of provision of services to private patients are recouped by public hospitals. Persons can opt to be treated privately on admission to a public hospital, in which case they are liable for the consultants fees and hospital charges arising for that episode of care, whether paid for by the patient or by a health insurer on their behalf. Where private in-patient services are provided the daily charges that apply depend on the category of hospital and whether the overnight accommodation was in a single or multi-occupancy room.
There are a broad range of health insurance products available to consumers in the health insurance market, which provide varying levels of benefit. Most health insurance contracts cover the cost of consultant services provided during a hospital stay (an exception to this would be day-to-day or outpatient policies).
Some Private Health Insurers have raised issues in relation to the operational procedures (in particular the use of the Private Insurance Patient waiver form) in place by hospitals for the collection of the private in-patient charges. The detailed operational procedures are managed by the HSE. It is considered that the application of these operational procedures should be sensitive to the health status of patients whilst in hospital. The Department has recently conducted an analysis of trends in private activity in public hospitals since the Health (Amendment) Act 2013 commenced. The key conclusion from the analysis is that the proportion of patients treated privately in public hospitals remained very stable over recent years and did not increase significantly further to the introduction of the new charging regime in 2014.
