Medical Card Savings

€76 million is the figure given for the amount of saving made as per the December 2010 Performance Report, due to spending on medical cards and other drug schemes in 2010.

These new figures have come about due to profiles of medical card holders being “less expensive than the budgeted profile”, it has been said. The Drug Payment Scheme has also been attributed to producing these savings.

The current number of medical card holders in Ireland is now just over 1.615 million, which is below that of target projections of 1.622 million. Last year alone 137,000 were granted the medical card. Where the numbers of GP visit cards is 3% over projections, it lies at 117,000.

Good news for HSE savings and the waiting time to process applications has also decreased.