Almost a dozen GP practices got more than €1m from medical card scheme

Almost a dozen GP practices received more than €1 million from the medical card scheme last year, figures from the Health Service Executive show.

Just over €856 million was paid out to 3,035 GP practices under the scheme last year, which was up almost 9 per cent from the €788 million the year before. The total includes payments for patients and practice support payments.

There were 24 practices which were paid more than €900,000 under the scheme, with 11 getting at least €1 million.

The highest earner was Dr Salgaonkar Vivek Mahadev who has a surgery in Mountmellick, Co Laois, who was paid more than €1.3 million.

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The next highest was Dr Austin O’Carroll in Dublin who was paid more than €1.2 million. Dr Caitlin O’Connor with a practice in Tralee, Co Kerry, was the third-highest at over €1.19 million.

The HSE said the scheme and the figures can cover several GPs and staff working in the same practice.

“In some cases the gross amount listed, attached to the name of a particular contractor, may also cover payment made to that practice in respect of a number of staff and/or other staff working in that particular practice and should therefore be seen as gross income of that practice rather than the personal income or salary of the named contractor,” it said.

Dr Denis McCauley, chairman of the GP committee of the Irish Medical Organisation, said the fees were published in a “misleading” manner.

“As usual the fees paid to GPs are published without any context and are misleading,” he said.

“From these fees, GPs not only provided all GP care to almost 2.1 million medical card/doctor-visit card patients but also, during this most challenging of times, GPs and their teams administered the Covid vaccine programme and managed the Covid advice and testing pathway for all patients.”

He said that in order to run a practice, individual GPs must provide and pay for premises, all practice equipment, all IT systems, as well as staff the practice with medical, nursing and administrative teams.

“These fees represent a significant increase in the workload within general practice during Covid when all GPs and their teams managed significantly increased workloads,” he said.

“The costs associated with running a modern, appropriately staffed GP practice are substantial.”

He added there are “significant concerns” that there are not enough GPs to meet the demands of a growing population.