PATIENTS undergoing heart, cancer and certain other medical treatments will not face additional medical bills this week as threatened in a row between the VHI and hospital consultants. However, it may be just a temporary reprieve, according to the Irish Hospital Consultant's Association.
Ms Bernadette Carr, medical director of the VHI, said the health insurer is continuing to pay at the fully participating rate. It had received no notification from consultants that they were going to "balance bill", where patients are asked to pay to top up bills.
The VHI wrote to consultants yesterday officially informing them that a 3 per cent increase for this year, and the same amount for 1998, had been decided upon by the board. Company sources said yesterday that this offer was "unlikely to change" despite the consultants' demand for a 4.5 per cent increase next year. The rate will increase only if inflation does.
The secretary general of the IHCA, Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, said they hoped to negotiate with the VHI on the issue. "The crisis has been deferred rather than resolved," he said. "We would like to get it resolved."
A two year agreement, where consultants receive higher payments in return for not sending "balance bills" to patients, expired on Friday. Ms Carr explained that 94 per cent of consultants are in this category.
According to Mr Fitzpatrick, up to 340 of the 1,300 consultants had not reached agreement with the VHI. The consultants are angry over a new schedule of charges for procedures. It will be released by the VHI in two weeks.
Payments for some procedures will be reduced by over 50 per cent, mainly in cardiology, oncology, respiratory, dermatology and vascular. According to VHI sources, an echo cardiography, an ultrasound of the heart, will be reduced by 50 per cent. The company paid out up to £800,000 for this procedures last year.
However, they said some payments are to be increased by up to 30 per cent. The company argues that such changes must be made to the schedule of payments to ensure that "prices don't escalate out of control".
Last year hospital consultants were paid £80 million, an increase of 18 per cent. Over the past six years payments have increased by almost 130 per cent, but the company predicts that payments will increase by only up to 10 per cent this year.
Consultants argue that the increases are as a result of more patients being seen.