GP wants to charge excessive fee for Medical Form

juliescot

bumpoowee wrote: »

Fair enough, and for your homework please consider the value and necessity of reasonable assumptions based on the available evidence in various scenarios.

Good advice which is why I try, but not always succeed, to not make sweeping generalisations which do not advance the debate. Give it try.

skiTTish

Its a standard fee ,need to pay the same if you want your doc to vouch for your identity on official documents ( driving license ,passport etc )

Tribulation

I can see both sides to this.

Someone short of money, saving to go to Uni or whatever, needing a report that will take away a weeks living expenses, could be seen as excessive.

The same cost for a report for someone on a 50K per year job would seem totally reasonable

I would go as far as saying that charging a student that, is excessive. I couldn't care less what the BMA's guidance fees are, I think those fees are excessive. The average person living here doesn't have private health insurance, they pay tax/ni for a national health service. That being the case, I would argue that a certificate needed to be signed in order to complete a uni course should not be charged at a rate a private patient would pay. I'm not saying they shouldn't pay, but £59 for a student?

Most GP's earn over 115K.

do we want people to go onto further education or do we want to hamper them at every turn.

Most medical reports such as those required by life insurance companies are paid for by the businesses concerned (ok thorough your premiums but you know what I mean).

I notice that according to http://www.bma.org.uk/images/Fees3_tcm41-146708.pdf

A medical examination and full written report for a prospective NHS employee is £39.22
while a written report without seeing the person is just £25.15

Those sorts of costs seem a lot fairer to a student than £59.

Just had a quick look at private GP fees.

15 min private consultation at Bupa, £61
15 min private consultation at http://www.therycotepractice.co.uk/Fees%20table.aspx £40
15 min private consultation at http://www.privategpsurrey.co.uk/private_gp_consultations_surrey.htm £35

Taking all that into account, I would say a £59 charge is extortionate although I understand all the arguments presented in earlier threads. Just because the BMA suggest prices etc, doesn't mean that it is a morally right charge to levy onto a student.

Tribulation

skiTTish wrote: »

Its a standard fee ,need to pay the same if you want your doc to vouch for your identity on official documents ( driving license ,passport etc )

There isn't a recommended fee for driving licenses or passports.

There is a recommended fee for a straightforward certificate of fact, which is just £15

http://www.bma.org.uk/images/Fees11_tcm41-180670.pdf

The_One_Who

Tribulation wrote: »

Just had a quick look at private GP fees.

15 min private consultation at Bupa, £61
15 min private consultation at http://www.therycotepractice.co.uk/Fees%20table.aspx £40
15 min private consultation at http://www.privategpsurrey.co.uk/private_gp_consultations_surrey.htm £35

Taking all that into account, I would say a £59 charge is extortionate although I understand all the arguments presented in earlier threads. Just because the BMA suggest prices etc, doesn't mean that it is a morally right charge to levy onto a student.

A 15 minute private consultation is entirely different to having to drag out old medical records, look at them, verify them and then write your report. Also, it usually won't be the doctor concerned getting these records, so the person who does it will need to be paid too.

Being a student doesn't mean you get everything for free or cheaper than you normally would. My course has required field trips. I would much rather not go on them and save the money, but I can't. If you want to do a degree then you need to take the good with the bad and be grateful that you aren't paying for the full cost of it!

Tribulation

The_One_Who wrote: »

A 15 minute private consultation is entirely different to having to drag out old medical records, look at them, verify them and then write your report. Also, it usually won't be the doctor concerned getting these records, so the person who does it will need to be paid too.

Being a student doesn't mean you get everything for free or cheaper than you normally would. My course has required field trips. I would much rather not go on them and save the money, but I can't. If you want to do a degree then you need to take the good with the bad and be grateful that you aren't paying for the full cost of it!

If GP's running their surgeries on the money they earn (not talking about just salaries), haven't got it together to get all patients records onto their computers, that's down to their (or the staff they employ) bad running of the surgery.

My GP's had all our old records on their computers for years.

I don't see why the public should be charged for the bad running of a GP surgery. If I see my GP for something, he can instantly pull all my records up, including various illness history at a click of a button etc.

We're not even talking about a GP writing a report, but simply answering 4 questions on a form.

welf_man

But we don't know what the questions are! There's a big difference between "Is the patient currently taking any medication?" and "Has the patient ever suffered from high or low blood pressure, palpitations or fainting fits?"

Mel.

melancholly

*sigh* all the huffing and puffing in the world won't help the OP - it may only serve to encourage a difficult attitude that won't make the problem any better!

as far as i can see, apart from going through PALS (who will say there isn't anything they can do), the best suggestion is to register with a university GP who may be more likely to have done this before and may not charge (although when I changed GP as a student, i was told it would be up to 4 weeks to get records sent from my old surgery - where they have actually now returned quite a few years later!).

(incidentally, my GP has computer records, but they haven't scanned in every document i've had since birth - the last 10 years are on the computer but before that, i think they're still on paper. even the most organised GP in the country will struggle to catch up on that level of data entry - BUT IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER - in the same way as signing passport photos and vaccinations for exotic holidays, this isn't a 'service' from the GP, it's private - it may suck, but it's a cost you're stuck with if they decide to charge it.... some fights are worth it, others are losing battles!)

skiTTish

As an 'aside' my son rang our doctor to request a medical ( he is joining the army ) The receptionist asked if he had all the forms and paperwork ,he said yes ,and a form for the doc to to fill in to claim £69 off the Army for the cost . My son was asked to fetch all the paperwork in and the doctor would decide whether he was willing to do it or not ?!?!

olly300

bumpoowee wrote: »

Alright, this is the last thing I am going to say on this topic because it has gotten very old, but I think GPs need to be removed from their pedestal and come live in the real world. £100k a year for a 30 hour week and 45+ days leave a year (this is no exagerration, I know a GP very well who admits to this) is a farce.

The GPs who get these salaries are partners.

I know GPs as well including those who get more, and those who get less and work longer hours. (My own current GP can take out more if he decides to.)

To get this salary or more it's was simply a case of being in the right place at the right time or offered a partnership at the right time before every medical student/junior doctor wanted to become a GP.

At the moment in my area no more partners are needed so any GP employed, is on a salarly.

This salarly varies from £45-60K depending on where exactly they are working in the area due to the various bits of London weighting.

It's basically the government's fault that partners can earn that much.

bumpoowee wrote: »

The way GPs practices are run are hugely inefficient and beyond a joke.

In my local practice to get an appointment you have to ring at 8am ON THE DAY to try (no guarantee) to get an appointment - how the hell is anybody who works supposed to plan for that? If GPs were made to work for their money we would get a much better service - this attitude that they are gods helps nothing other than GPs egos.

The last 3 practices including the current practice I've joined, have been very efficient. It does help living in a city, and having more than one GP practice in walking distance.

Incidentally all my GPs haven't been the nearest practice to where I live. After signing up with a bad practice one year as a student I've been very careful who I sign up with since.

They have early morning commuter clinics where you can book an appointment in advance, and I can phone up for afternoon appointments after 9.30am. This means that I can be at work and leave work after lunch or later and to get to the GP for 3.30-4pm.

They also have various clinics operated by different staff including the GPs themselves for things like asthma. I happened to have lived near teaching hospitals so all the senior partners have an interest in training/teaching/lecturing.

Yes when I was a child/teenager my 2 practice GP had evening surgery. However at that point GP's where paid sh*t, if you had a illness that could be managed by the GP you were sent to the local hospital or a crappy clinic which was more difficult to get to. And GPs were actually treated more God like.

Incidentally one of my colleagues was slagging of GPs like you do but when he needed an urgent appointment as he was in pain, he phoned up and was told he could be seen within the hour. So he left work to go to the appointment. He lives nearer to where I currently work then I do so an hour is more than enough time for him to get to the surgery.

bumpoowee wrote: »

Although we don't know what these 4 questions are that the OP needs a GP to sign off on, it is a fair bet that they are standard and simply a matter of checking against a patients records - which could potentially be a fully automated process but at the very least should be no more than 5 minutes work. If GPs are not forced to lower the price they will never modernise and continue ripping people off to pay for their duck ponds and golf club memberships - for those of you who have never been students, £59 is a lot of money to most students.

Yes £59 is a lot of money.

However not all students come from a poor background or have parents/relations who won't pay for health treatment.

And the fee is a standard fee whether it's an employer asking about an employee or an individual.

Plus I've seen my records and only the last 8 years or so have been put on computer. It doesn't help I've moved practices and health authority areas.