Medical card holders facing ‘multiple rejections’ in bid to find GPs who will take on new patients

Medical card holders have brought their predicament to the attention of the offices of the Citizens Information Board across the country as they struggled to be accepted by a GP. They said they were unable to get on the lists of local doctors, despite being entitled to free access through the medical card, which generates an annual capitation fee for the GP.

The board said it received more than 10,000 queries about medical cards in the first quarter of this year.

The medical card “resumed its place” as the most asked-about single payment brought to the attention of its offices in the first quarter of 2023.

It had been “slightly eclipsed” by fuel allowance enquiries at the end of last year as energy bills soared.

“For the past number of years, the predominant issue being reported in relation to the medical card has been difficulties for people in applying for and renewing their cards online,” the board said.

“As the relative share of concerns relating to online access issues has been decreasing, the reporting of difficulties accessing GPs, as well as dentists, has increased and it is now the leading concern.

“Many of the cases provide details of patients approaching multiple medical practices in their local area and beyond to be met with rejections on the basis that practices are full.”

The knock-on impact on patients follows warnings that waiting times to see GPs are getting worse for non-urgent appointments.

The Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), which holds its annual meeting later this week, has estimated 74pc of family doctors are unable to take on new private patients and nearly eight in 10 are turning away people with a medical card or GP visit card.

It said many practices are limiting access and cannot take on any new patients.

“This places further pressures on patients, local hospitals, emergency departments and GP out-of-hours services or online GPs,” the board said.

“Medical card holders are allocated a temporary replacement GP by the HSE or allocated to other GPs. This impacts considerably on continuity of care.”

The Government last month agreed to postpone the extension of around 500,000 GP visit cards following objections by GPs, who warned they would be swamped and it would lead to longer waiting times for appointments.

More patients who find themselves shut out of practices are having to go to out-of-hours GP services, which are only supposed to be for emergencies, or hospital emergency departments.

In response to queries from TDs about the failure of medical card holders to get on to the books of a GP, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said that if there was evidence that a patient with a medical card had applied to three GPs in their area, they could apply to the HSE national medical card unit and it has the power to assign them to a GP’s list.

The number of people covered by a medical card is projected to increase from around 1.5 million last year to 1.6 million this year.

Meanwhile, the Citizens Information Board also reported that it received an increase in queries from pensioners who were having difficulty dealing with the Revenue Commissioners online servives.

“It would seem that the Budget 2023 increase in state pension has meant that some pension recipients are liable for tax for the first time as pensioners and are being required to engage with Revenue online,” it said.

“Many of these clients will not have had to deal with Revenue for many years and may have never had to register with the myAccount facility.”