Shock as patient gets €17,000 bill for one night stay in hospital

A TD last night called for a probe after a greedy private hospital billed health insurers e17,000 for a patient’s one-night stay.

Fianna Fail’s health spokesman Billy Kelleher highlighted the case after Dublin’s Mater Private sent Laya Healthcare the staggering bill.

The patient, a Limerick woman, spent one night in a semi-private room with six others and had cardiac surgery.

Bizarrely, her health insurer was billed €17,280.75 for the room and just €2,062.23 for the operation.

Mr Kelleher said: “An investigation needs to be carried out in this case. I am sure this isn’t the only such case.

“The amount paid by Laya Healthcare to the Mater Private Hospital was €16,905.75, meaning the person in question owed the Mater Private Hospital €375.

“Those figures relate to the accommodation only. The cardiac surgery itself cost €2,000. Laya Healthcare paid €17,000 for one night’s accommodation.

“The difficulty we have with all of this is that the private health insurance market is now unsustainable for many reasons, including the fact that the economic downturn has meant there are fewer people at work and income levels have dropped.”

The patient received the bill in November and the final cost

of the one-night stay came to €19,342.98.

The issue was raised in the Dail yesterday with Mr Kelleher demanding the Health Minister carries out an investigation.

He also called for the Health Insurance Authority to probe the scandalous bill.

Deputy Kelleher said this was a “damning indictment of Government policy and the health system in general”.

He said these excessive costs were driving up the cost of insurance and forcing people out of the market at a time when 6,000 people a month are abandoning their premiums.

He said: “Private health insurance is being systematically undermined by the Government’s policies, which are inflating prices.

“Just four months ago, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, announced in this House that he intended to cap tax relief on gold-plated health insurance policies.

“It subsequently transpired that almost every health insurance policy that has been retained by the average family in this country will be affected by that taxation measure.

“Every Government policy is inflating the cost of private health insurance for hard-pressed families.

“The bottom line is that the Minister for Finance, with one fell swoop, drove thousands of people out of the private health insurance market.

SOURCE-IRISH MIRROR