No plans to cut medical cert fees, says Burton

MINISTER FOR Social Protection Joan Burton says she has no plans at present to cut the fees paid to doctors for medical certificates.

Ms Burton said planned savings in the cost of medical certs were being achieved by requiring doctors to issue them less frequently.

The Government announced in last December’s Budget that the cost to the department of sickness and disability certificates would be cut by 10 per cent.

This followed controversy over the level of payments to GPs and other doctors who sign medical certificates for workers claiming illness benefit payments. According to the figures obtained by Labour Party TD Kevin Humphreys last year, the State is paying GPs more than €450,000 per week – more than €23 million per year – for completing these forms for the department.

Annually, on average, the department is paying €10,000 to participating doctors. The highest payment was almost €83,000, to a practice with 13 GPs.

Employees who are sick and out of work for more than three days can claim for illness benefit from the department.

Payment of the benefit is conditional on a doctor signing an initial certificate following a medical examination and then signing further certificates on a weekly basis.

Doctors are paid the €8.25 fee for completing and submitting a form to the department where they are satisfied that a patient is incapable of work due to some specific illness, disease or bodily or mental disablement.

Last year, about 5,000 initial certificates, known as MC1 forms, were sent to the department each week, while 50,000 of the weekly certificates, known as MC2 forms, were completed.

Mr Humphreys returned to the issue last week when he asked the Minister in a parliamentary question whether, in fact, the current fee of €8.25 had been reduced to €7.42.

However, Ms Burton replied that the frequency of certification by a person’s doctor had been reduced in cases where the person’s medical condition “is deemed such that less frequent certification is appropriate”.

“At this stage, it is not proposed to implement a rate reduction as rates have remained unchanged since July 2003,” she told her Labour colleague.

Mr Humphreys said: “I would commend the Minister on her efforts to make administrative savings through smarter work practices, and I will be monitoring the overall spend during this year to ensure savings are realised.

“I believe further savings could still be made through rate reductions in the fee paid to doctors for medical certs in this year’s budget.”