Nursing home visits: The failure to review decades old charges for chiropody visits has led to the increasing withdrawal of chiropodists from providing treatment for medical-card patients in nursing homes, according to a chiropodists' representative group.
Chiropodists can expect to receive, before tax, €20.22 for a clinic visit; €3.66 for a return visit involving a dressing change; €30.41 for a home visit; and €83.13 for a nursing home or day-care centre session involving a maximum of eight patients. In the case of the nursing home visit, chiropodists receive €30.41 for the first patient and €7.56 thereafter for every patient treated.
However, the minimal payment involved in treating medical-card owners compared with the potential earnings in a private clinic has resulted in the withdrawal of chiropodists from nursing homes since 2001, according to a spokesman for the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists of Ireland. This is largely due to the failure to renegotiate 1968 fees, but following a recent meeting with the HSE, chiropodists are awaiting a mediator's report which it is hoped will contain increased charges.
Under the current scheme, persons aged over 65 must apply through their local medical centre and HSE for four free chiropody treatments. However, the HSE is not legally obliged to provide chiropody services.
Where the service is available, it is free to medical-card holders and people with Hepatitis C who contracted the disease through the use of Human Immunoglobulin-Anti-D or from the receipt within Ireland of any blood product or blood transfusion, and who have a Health Amendment Act Card. "In some cases, you will find chiropodists who won't treat GMS patients at all and then others who will treat people and levy a supplementary charge of €10 or €15," according to the chiropodists' spokesman.
Labour health spokeswoman Liz McManus has called on Minister for Health Mary Harney to intervene in the dispute.