GPs will never repay €2m for 'ghost' patients, committee told

Public Accounts Committee:Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell has indicated that he does not believe that GPs will ever have to repay nearly €2 million which they received in over-payments for treating "ghost" or ineligible patients under the medical card scheme.

A review carried out by the Health Service Executive found that GPs had received overpayments of €6.5 million.

However, these were offset by under-payments of about €4.7 million in other areas.

This left a net overpayment to GPs of about €1.8 million.

Mr Purcell told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee yesterday that the issue had now been caught up in wider negotiations between the Department of Health and GP representatives.

"Whether we will ever see GPs paying back the money, I would say 'don't hold your breath'," he said.

The chairman of the committee, Michael Noonan, said that the position was unsatisfactory.

He said that the best that could be hoped for was that the Department of Health would obtain significant concessions in its talks with GPs in return for writing off the amounts overpaid.

Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party said that there had been thousands of ghost patients and that the system must have been "haunted".

He said that essentially what was being suggested by the doctors was that while they received payments for ghost patients in some areas this was offset by money which they were owed in other areas. "That is a ridiculous way of accounting," Mr Higgins said.

In a document to the committee, the Department of Finance said that the Minister, Brian Cowen, agreed that payment systems must be based on accurate and timely information.