Health Insurance Why do so many consultants only take cash?

Same experience at the Blackrock clinic, 180euro for 5 min consultation and to be paid in cash !!! I did get a receipt as well

T McGibney said:

I hope for his own sake that he is keeping good records. A venerable dentist in my own neck of the woods, now sadly deceased, was similarly seeing a large proportion of his less well-off customers for free.

Then one day, a Revenue Inspector confronted him having literally sat outside his door for days on end counting the numbers of customers coming in and out.

The Inspector wouldn't believe the dentist was seeing people for free so he threatened to raise a huge tax demand on the dentist.

So the dentist literally shut his doors. For good.

And the poor people of Co. Cavan lost the only dentist who would cheerfully treat them even if they couldn't afford to pay.

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Fair play to the Revenue on the one hand, they are doing their job. I doubt he is keeping great records but I will say it to him. No good deed goes unpunished...

vandriver said:

There's no real excuse when you can get a portable card reader run off your phone.

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I agree 100%.

I have also had a number of recent experiences with consultants not accepting card payments. Consultants should not be confused with GPs by the way, who generally do appear to accept card payments in my personal experience.

If one considers such factors as:

• the low cost of card transactions (Ryanair might like us to believe that card transactions are expensive, but local retailers, online takeaways etc. don't seem to find it expensive)
  
• the convenience factor for both patient and consultant (in terms of reducing the number of trips to the bank to lodge or withdraw cash, or actually carry cash)
• the reduced risk of theft or accidental loss of large amounts of cash

... then it is very hard not to be suspicious as to why a consultant would not be prepared to accept card payments.

One might conclude that while consultants issue receipts and people sometimes use these receipts to make claims against their health insurance, it is highly unlikely that all receipts issued could ever be found if the Revenue decided to audit a consultant, to verify the amount of payments the consultant had actually received.

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