Laura Slattery examines ways to numb the pain in your pocket of going to the doctor.
Parents with young children are often all too familiar with both the inside of their local GP's waiting room and the cost of family healthcare.
By the time they have paid the GP fees (typically €40-€50 a visit), picked up the necessary prescription pills and creams and written their family dentist a cheque for all those routine check-ups, their bank balances will have shrunk - painfully in some cases.
Almost two million people in Ireland are members of private health insurance plans from either VHI or BUPA - the majority of them belonging to hospital plans like Plan B or Essential Plus that will cover the often frightening cost of hospital stays, serious operations and in-patient or day-patient consultants' fees.
Most parents with private health insurance include their children as part of their plan.
But these health insurance products don't cover the cost of the sniffles, the sports-related bone fractures, the vaccines, the fillings, the eye tests and the strange rash ointments. These can all add up, even before parents calculate the financial drain of their own medical needs.
And often these are the very expenses that are likely to lighten the wallets of younger policyholders who surmise that their chances of being admitted to hospital with a serious condition are relatively low.
According to health insurance company, HSA Simply Health Ireland, Irish consumers are squandering thousands of euro every year on these everyday healthcare treatments. How? By not purchasing the type of insurance it sells - a health cash plan.
The average amount spent by Irish households on such treatments is more than €1,500 a year, HSA says, while its cheapest cash plan for two adults and up to three children costs €208 annually.
Cash plans refund either half or the full cost of a range of out-patient expenses such as GP fees, prescriptions, screenings, dental and optical treatment, osteopathy, physiotherapy, acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy and chiropody.
They are so-called because they also give people a modest sum for each night or day they spend in hospital. This benefit, which ranges from €20-€120 per night depending on how much the person is contributing to their plan, can be spent on anything from a presentable, hole-free pair of pyjamas to emergency childcare arrangements.
It is believed that around 150,000 people in the Republic own health cash plans, which have traditionally been sold by HSA and the Hospital Saturday Fund (HSF).
VHI and BUPA's main hospital plans do, in theory, insure people for a selection of out-patient benefits, but the trouble is the excesses - the first part of any insurance claim that the person must pay themselves - are steep.
But newer products from VHI and BUPA are free of excesses. BUPA's Health Manager products include a 50 per cent refund on out-patient expenses as part of a combined in-patient and everyday insurance plan, while VHI's Health Steps products, like the HSA and HSF cash plans, can be purchased as a top-up to a normal in-patient health plan.
With the array of available everyday healthcare insurance options now wider than ever before, it can be confusing for consumers to work out which one, if any, is the most suitable and cost-effective for them.
VHI's Health Steps Gold costs €169 for an individual and €503 for a family of two adults and three children. The Silver version costs just €109 for an individual and €335 for the family.
The HSA's cash plans start at €104 annually for one person and up to four children and €208 for two adults and up to three children. The HSF plans (which cover an adult, their spouse or partner and all dependent children) cost from €114 to €660 a year.
The cash plans work on the general rule that the more you contribute per month, the more you will get back in benefits should you need to make a claim.
But the way each company's cash plans work differs. For example, HSF will refund customers half the cost of all dental and optical treatments, but HSA's plans will pay back 100 per cent of the cost. In both cases, the benefit is subject to annual limits.
The HSA cash plans also give more generous payouts than HSF for GP visits, but there will always be a shortfall. The company pays back 50 per cent of the cost of GP visits, subject to an annual allowance per person of just €40 on the cheapest plan.
VHI's Health Steps may prove more favourable for people whose main medical expense is regular attendance at their GP's clinic. These products give a benefit of €20 per GP visit under the Silver plan and €30 per GP visit under the Gold plan, up to a limit of 25 visits per year. These plans also give €15/€25 per dental visit, with no restriction on the number of visits.
There is another way to numb the pain of everyday health costs without having to fork out for yet another insurance policy - tax relief.
Consumers can claim tax relief on a range of medical expenses as long as they haven't been reimbursed under any scheme. The relief, which can be claimed by filling out the Revenue form MED 1, is available at the highest rate of tax that you pay.
Unfortunately, the first €125 worth of medical expenses incurred in any year is not eligible for tax relief. As the average number of GP visits per person is just over three per year, this means a lot of people won't actually be spending enough on healthcare to qualify.
But it is estimated that there are thousands more people who do run up substantial annual out-patient bills, yet do not bother to claim.