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In reply to
> Can anyone give me the benefit of their wisdom regarding treatment of
> overseas visitors? We have a practice policy of charging every non-EEC
> resident for treatment,more on a matter of principle than anything else
> as when we holiday abroad anywhere we take out insurance.Even in the EEC
> health coverage is very uneven and to trust to local "free" provision
> could be very brave.This generates little income but sometimes
> aggravation from patients who don't see why their aunt from Australia
> should have to pay but we try to stick to our guns.The alternative of
> signing the patients on as TRs- which the FSHA are happy for us to do-
> actually costs the NHS money.An extreme case highlighted this to me. I
> was doing an overnight session for Healthcall a few weeks ago when I had
> a night visit to a pleasant enough Aussie lady. She was quite happy to
> pay but the logistics didn't seem to be in place.Thus as it stands the
> GP who Healthcall "allocated" her as a TR got about 10 of NHS money and
> 20 of NHS night visit fee and had to pay Healthcall 34 for the
> visit=net loss to the GP who's never set eyes on the patient and the NHS
> 30+ out of pocket
> Any thoughts?
> Best wishes,
> Peter Glover
> Rayleigh,Essex
> --
I think that all visitors to the UK (i.e stays of less than 6/12) should
be warned on their visas (yes, they should need one of those too) to take
out adequate health insurance.
I charge where possible but don't want to fall foul of the FHSA.
We all expect to pay abroad even in EU countries so I can't see why we
have this anomalous free service to tourists.
Leonard Peter
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