To think £60 is alot of money for a GP's signature?

[EachandEveryone]

If id have known id have just taken it into my appointment with me but instead i went the official route. Ten days later the receptionist has called to say its ready and its £60. I wont be bothering to collect.

I was in hospital for five nights it was an emergency and i had to pay a cat sitter to come in. It was only looking at my policy that i realised i could claim it back. Every little helps. Form was straightforward i have my letter and everything. The gp has all my info. Sixty quid! Is this normal?

Im a nurse can i just get a doctor on my ward to sign it they know where ive been?

So an accountant who helps people makes a living out of helping the well of off pay less tax is accusing doctors and other healthcare professionals of being "greedy and profiteering".

Bad is right I am afraid. My In Laws were doctors. They put all of their children through private school and are now both on higher rate tax pensions.

They worked hard and the qualifications were tough to achieve but they aren't scraping by these days. My DFIL wouldn't do much private work. He didn't agree with it - if he had they would have really done well money wise

When the NHS goes phut you are in for a rude shock at the size of the bills....signing health insurance forms is non-NHS work the practice are entitled to charge what they feel to be the requisite fee. If you don't like it get someone else to do it.

For a comparison wig equivalent professions - My brother middle grade solicitor, not in London, not a partner, bills £800 for his time, he trained for less time than me and has less PQE (post qualification experience) wonder how much I'll be able to bill!!!!
Another friend is a life coach, one week training course and several hours of supervised coaching now charges £75 / session (45 mins).

Reading the letter, checking that you hadn't entered the wrong info with your medical records and then signing the form and leaving with reception who then phoned you probably took at least 20mins of GP time and 5 of admin staff....

I don't think an accountant is helping people pay less tax illegally!

Surely as a nurse you should know you are not paying for the signature but the time?

Oh and if all doctors stopped work when NHS time finished a lot of patients would get shit care.

I'm a hospital consultant I routinely finish at least an hour over my "paid" time every day. GP friends are doing a lot more. Loads of them are logging in to do letters/results etc most evenings from home so they at least see their children.

NHS is in a bad way and one of the ways to prop up practices incimes is to stop being mugs and doing chargeable stuff for free. My grandfather's practice needed to complete a med cert for his nursing home - they only changed 20quid. I was appalled it would have taken at least an hour to complete properly and was not NHS work we were more than willing to pay the proper fee (I was expecting to pay £150).

Devalue your services and others do the same.

Most GP practices are private so they are effectively running a business. Nhs doesn't pay the staff. The GPs pay the staff. They work ridiculously long hrs to fit in signing these letters & all the other work they do in between and after seeing patients.

I had to pay £20 for a note for uni, got a telling off because "don't university staff think GPs have enough to do without writing letters all day?" and in the end my uni didn't accept it I was struggling with anxiety and health condition flareups which were exacerbated by my financial situation at the time. I do appreciate that there was admin involved but £60 does seem a lot. If I needed £60 to save my life I'd probably have to borrow it

Greedy GPs? They are incredibly hard working, usually working more hours than they're contracted for. Perhaps you should have asked how much it would cost before you gave them the letter?

Passing GP Partner.

£60 is more than we would charge for such a letter but, to put it into context, our solicitor charges us £30 to watch us sign something and stamp it. This probably would have taken 10mins of Gp time to check details and dictate something, and then a few minutes of admin time to type. We would quote and charge upfront unless we really knew you- doesn’t matter if you don’t collect the letter we’ve still spent time doing the work. And that is 10mins that I could have spent with my family etc.

As to the accountant, either you’re lying or you have a very curious concept of GP accounts. The NHS doesn’t pay my secretary, I do. So her staying longer to complete this work means that she gets paid for extra time which actually costs me and the other Partners money. There is no actual concept of “NHS time” and even if there was and she did this in “NHS time”, she’d have to stay back to do other work, which would still cost me (the practice) extra money.

As to it going straight into my pocket, well it goes into the practice accounts, which pays the staff, the heating, the insurance etc etc and then what is left is drawn by the partners after a 30% pension contribution. I find it hard to believe that you’re a (competent) medical accountant.

Lemony treat. Couldn't have put it better myself.
Oh and it's not "just a signature" it's a professional opinion or report. No wonder we GPs feel undervalued.

Was it definitely £60 and not £16..?

GPS are contracted to provide a service and a minimum number of consulting hours. Lots of work is done outside those hours which is included in the contract. The nhs don’t just buy ‘x’ number of hours of GPs time. In return the GPs get money which goes into the partnership and from this they pay bills that need to be paid, including staff, IT, stationary etc. The GP partners then take home their agreed share of the profit that is left. I imagine the £60 will go into the partnership pot. If they write a private letter this isn’t on NHS time as the NHS work still needs to be done.

Having said that there are an increasing number of GP practices where GPs are employed directly by the NHS, normally because it is too difficult to get any GPs to take on a partnership in that area. In those cases the fee for a private letter will be fixed by the NHS and paid to the NHS.

I work in a surgery we have a list of non his work with charges we have to look up and let the patient know about the charges. I don't know who made this list it's his wide or something the practice manager or GP partners decide. You could certainly query it though ask to speak to practice manager they should know

sorry NHS wife

We paid £50 for a letter for DDs severe hayfever during GCSE's. I think it is right to pay because the letters are private and not NHS. £60 and even the £50 we paid is a bit steep though - did they tell you the charge when you requested the letter?

Ironically, only last week, a GP client had a whinge at me for charging him £25 to complete an income confirmation/reference request from a bank to support his mortgage application for his 7th buy to let property. One rule for them, one rule for everyone else.

My mother has Alzhiemers, and I am shocked how often I need to get a GP's letter to confirm her illness. I would worry less about GPs charging and more about how people like insurance companies demand that GPs give/sell their time, when "proof" might be found by anothe route.

If you go back to the origional post, the problem is that the insurance company wants the letter, but is not prepared to pay for it.

I don't think an accountant is helping people pay less tax illegally!

Tax avoidance doesn't have to be illegal to be immoral.

Back to you actually. I'm an accountant and I've been doing GP, consultant and dentists accounts/tax returns for 30+ years. I know EXACTLY how they operate. How many GP tax returns have you seen???

You submit tax returns? Well done you. How clever of you. You obviously know that’s GPs are self employed and there is a very complex charging system, which is not based on working 40 hours a week for the NHS on ‘NHS time’ as you seem to believe.

When you’re in the business of running Gp practices, get back in touch.

I would assume that the high fee is partly to reflect the costs but also partly a strong signal that they don't want to be asked to sign lots of letters or forms. They could have communicated it better - or you could have asked - but the time and effort is now spent and the fact is you owe them the money whether you collect the document or not. It would be incredibly shoddy not to pay.

As a nurse, you should also know it would be unethical and unprofessional of you to ask a doctor colleague who didn't treat you to sign it, and unethical of the doctor to do so.

You really aren't coming across well on this one, I'm afraid.

Best suggestion - ring them back, te then you are surprised at the price, ask if there is any possibility of a reduction as you would not have requested it had you known. If they give you a discount, great, and pay your bill. If they don't, still pay your bill.

I find it hard to believe that you’re a (competent) medical accountant

+1

Can you access records online? Like blood results etc?

Just to reiterate what lemony said re paying secretaries for private work. Doctors pay that themselves. It would not be on “NHS time”. I only know this, as my dad is a doctor and has a secretary who he pays a flat fee per letter to do his private work for him. Actually, im sure he said it was £50 a letter . As I understand it, he wouldn’t be allowed to ask her to do it on nhs time.

Ten days later the receptionist has called to say its ready and its £60. I wont be bothering to collect

you still owe them the money whether you collect it or not. You asked them to do a job from the private list, the fee for which was readily available to you
You owe them 60 quid, pay up.