One family doctor earned more than €700,000 from treating medical card holders last year, according to new figures published yesterday.
The top earner from the scheme was Dr Anthony Crosby from Clontarf in Dublin. He received a payout of €705,602.
Three other GPs earned more than €600,000 from treating medical card patients. These included Dr Austin O'Carroll, Mountjoy Street in Dublin; Dr Michael Casey in Carna, Co Galway; and Dr John Casey in Sutton, Dublin.
And a further 14 GPs earned more than €500,000 each from the scheme. Among them is a Wexford GP whose home was raided in 2004 within months of the figures being published.
The figures were released by the HSE, which also published details of payments to dentists, pharmacists and opticians under the medical card scheme for 2006. In total the HSE said it paid out more than €2 billion to 5,811 doctors, pharmacies, dentists and optometrists/ophthalmologists in 2006 through the Primary Care Reimbursement Service.
The data shows that the HSE paid more than €800,000 to two pharmacists. Abbey Healthcare in Blackrock, Dublin, was the highest earning pharmacy collecting some €870,000 from the HSE last year.
A Unicare Pharmacy in Cabinteely, Dublin, received the second-highest payout in the pharmacy sector, receiving some €830,000 from the scheme.
The payments to pharmacists include fees for dispensing drugs to medical card patients as well as those on long-term illness and other drug payment schemes.
The publication of their fees is timed to coincide with a row with pharmacists over reduced mark- ups on drugs which has prompted a number of pharmacists to withdraw this week from dispensing methadone to recovering drug addicts. They are also threatening to withdraw from the medical card scheme in December.
Meanwhile, the highest earning dentists from the medical card scheme last year were Dr Terence G Fox in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, who received €286,000 and Dr Robert Hanly from Fingal in Dublin who was paid €268,000.
The figures show just two eye clinics received payments in excess of €200,000 from the medical card scheme last year. Both were Specsavers outlets, one in Cork and one in Dublin.
Publishing the figures, the HSE said the total payouts in 2006 represented an increase of €194 million on the year before. But it said over 160,000 more people were entitled to benefits under the medical card and other schemes in 2006 compared with 2005.
"There are now over 2.91 million people registered as eligible for benefit under the GMS [ Medical Card] Scheme, the Drugs Payment Scheme, the Long Term Illness Scheme, the Dental Treatment Services Scheme, the Community Ophthalmic Services Schemes and GP Visit Cards in 2006. This compares with 2.74 million eligible in 2005," it said.
Commenting on the increasing levels of payments, Patrick Burke, assistant national director of the Primary Care Reimbursement Service, said: "The HSE is facing increasing demand for these services and this places an obvious pressure on our finances every year. Expenditure in 2006 increased by more than €194 million over 2005."