Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 13 Jun 2000

Vol. 521 No. 1

Written Answers. - Drugs Refund Scheme.

Dan Neville

Ceist:

212 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Health and Children when pharmacists will have queries replied to in relation to payment under the drug payment scheme; the average time lapse in dealing with queries; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16643/00]

Minister for Health and Children (Mr. Martin)

Queries regarding payments made by the General Medical Services (Payments) Board to community pharmacists arise, in the main, from over deduction of £42 from individuals in the same family. This situation has arisen due to the transitional arrangements put in place when the drug payment scheme was introduced on 1 July 1999. Under these arrangements patients could continue using their drug cost subsidisation scheme numbers pending the issue of drug payment scheme swipe cards. The introduction of the necessary information technology to facilitate the sole use of drug payment scheme numbers will considerably reduce queries in this regard. In the meantime queries from community pharmacists to the General Medical Services (Payments) Board are being dealt with as speedily as possible.

Considerable progress has been made towards resolving the difficulties which the board has experienced in its efforts to significantly increase the numbers of pharmacies who submit claims electronically to the board and it is expected that over the coming months demands by pharmacists for this facility will escalate. The board has recently introduced an early payment for contractors who submit both general medical services and drug payment scheme claims electronically to the board within three working days of the end of a month – qualified claimants will be paid within 14 working days of the end of the month of the claim, that is one month early in the case of GMS claims and two to three weeks early in the case of drug payment scheme claims. A recent check carried out by the board in April on claims submitted in March by a number of pharmacies who met the criteria showed that these pharmacies received their payments on 19 April.

Dan Neville

Ceist:

213 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Health and Children the number of people who have been issued with identity cards under the drugs payment scheme in each health board area; and the number of people still awaiting identity cards under the drugs payment scheme in each health board area. [16644/00]

Minister for Health and Children (Mr. Martin)

The number of persons issued with drug payment scheme cards up to 1 June 2000, according to information supplied by the General Medical Services (Payments) Board is set out in the following table.

Health Board Area	Cards Issued
Eastern Regional Health Authority	259,810
Midland Health Board	39,651
Mid-Western Health Board	68,492
North Eastern Health Board	65,737
North Western Health Board	32,134
South Eastern Health Board	78,131
Southern Health Board	119,524
Western Health Board	65,279
Total	728,758

Information regarding the number of persons still awaiting cards is at present being collated by my Department and I will communicate directly with the Deputy in the matter as soon as this information is to hand.