GP extra charges

CAMHS is a state agency, doctors who do medical card patients are state payed. There should be no need for CAMHS to do this form filling by the doctor, an email to the GP clinic should be sufficient to release the info to CAMHS. There is nothing extra the doctor could add, because if it was significant it should be in the electronic record which the HSE requires for all medical card patients.

This form filling is just a way for agencies to slow down their process and make it difficult for patients to access services. No one wants a referral to CAMHS unless they think their child needs serious intervention, why CAMHS needs the GP to sign it just adds to the delay.

The same for a load of other HSE agencies and the forms they require. The sooner this country had a joined up electronic health record the better for all.

They may well be underresourced but the situation with G.P. service is getting worse by the day.

We are not supposed to book an appointment with them unless totally necessary as they are so busy. Understand that in some practices it can sometimes take up to 2 weeks to get an appointment. Then if we do get an appointment we are not to take longer than 10 minutes or if we do then we need to book two sessions.

They could eventually be shooting themselves in the foot as free G.P. consultations from Laya and VHI are on the increase. I've read elsewhere that G.P.s are not happy about this either.

My G.P. was embarrassed some time back when I confronted him about doing double bookings. Another patient checked in at the same time as me and for the same doctor.

Up Rovers said:

They could eventually be shooting themselves in the foot as free G.P. consultations from Laya and VHI are on the increase. I've read elsewhere that G.P.s are not happy about this either.

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My experience with private health insurance phone/online consultations over the years is that unless the issue is very obvious or trivial they will generally tell you to go to your "regular" GP or A&E anyway, so I've always found them to be a bit of a waste of time and I don't bother with them anymore.

Up Rovers said:

We are not supposed to book an appointment with them unless totally necessary as they are so busy. Understand that in some practices it can sometimes take up to 2 weeks to get an appointment. Then if we do get an appointment we are not to take longer than 10 minutes or if we do then we need to book two sessions.

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The alternative is to give 20 minutes to everyone and see half the patients meaning you wait 4 weeks to see them?

Up Rovers said:

They could eventually be shooting themselves in the foot as free G.P. consultations from Laya and VHI are on the increase. I've read elsewhere that G.P.s are not happy about this either.

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They are not happy about it because GP is supposed to be a comprehensive service where you go for co-ordination of your general health needs and lifelong care of chronic conditions. I had the same GP from birth until college. Then I got a new GP at college and he is still my doctor. Both of them knew me through and through so I could be in and out in a few minutes. On the rare occasion that they were away, I saw someone else in the practice who could deal with me efficiently because they had the notes from my own GP.

The Laya/VHI GP service is fine for some things but they will not have your past medical history and cannot provide continuity of care. They are also limited to 10-15 minutes and will only deal with 1 issue. As @ClubMan says, they exclude a lot of conditions which your own GP would be able to look after. They certainly wouldn't be filling in any forms, not even for a fee.

Agree with that- online doctors are perfect for when you have a cold / flu need a cert for work when it actually makes a lot of sense not to be spreading it around others in person, or temporary pain killer for a bad back etc but for anything significant or medico-legal they won't want to know

T McGibney said:

It's never just a stamp and a signature though. If it is, you can presumably get that done in a Garda station.

A professional is legally accountable for literally every third party form they sign, and is on the hook whenever such a firm is certified inappropriately. As such they demand appropriate care and work.

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Of course some (not all by any means) forms are straightforward.
I got a form from my pharmacist regarding applying for long term scheme for my sons melatonin. It needs to be signed by GP, who at earlier appointment prescribed the medication themselves.. That HAS to go through his GP but it should be extremely straightforward and just take few mins. The system is clearly a bit convoluted mind

dubdub123 said:

Of course some (not all by any means) forms are straightforward.
I got a form from my pharmacist regarding applying for long term scheme for my sons melatonin. It needs to be signed by GP, who at earlier appointment prescribed the medication themselves.. That HAS to go through his GP but it should be extremely straightforward and just take few mins. The system is clearly a bit convoluted mind

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Rather than categorise the many types of referral and other forms that a GP might face and assign them individual prices I would imagine that they would just set a fixed price for any form and charge that. That would seem like a pragmatic approach to me even if it means that some people might feel hard done by for what they assume is a "simple" form to complete.

GP practices are a strange animal. My local one charges €10 I think for form filling. I remember ringing them in early 2019 to see if I could email them a form for signing to be told that they didn't really use email. I don't think they had a card machine at that stage either. They also had some ancient dot matrix printer for printing certain scripts.