Hanafin warns dentists over fraud

Minister for Social Welfare and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin warned dentists of the penalties associated with attempting to apply for eligibility for treating their clients under the dental benefit scheme without the customers’ permission.

The issue arose as dentists responded to changes to the scheme announced in the Budget with some dentists sending lists of hundreds of patients to the Department seeking clarification that the customers are eligible for treatment benefit.

In some cases, the customers had not given their permission for the dentist to contact the department. In other cases, the customers about whom the dentists were inquiring had died.

Ms Hanafin said although not widespread the issue relates to about a dozen practises.

She said: “In some cases they were just sending in their whole databases in alphabetical order and they were looking for treatment sanction for those people.”

The Minister warned dentists of possible financial penalties and other sanctions in place to deal with the practise.

“Use of information like that, use of PPS number, is in breach of the data protection and they can be sanctioned under that," she said.

“It would appear that one person signed all the forms - that could be fraud and can be treated as such. And of course we can revoke the contract.”

From January 1st, the dental benefit scheme will provide cover for a dental examination only. Previously, those who paid full social welfare contributions were entitled to a certain amount towards dental treatment, such as cleaning and fillings.

Irish Dental Association chief executive Fintan Hourihan said he was not aware of the cases and urged dentists to provide “accurate and factual information” to the department.