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Kapungo via Creative Commons
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VHI says deficit narrowed by €3.1m last year

VHI has released it annual report – showing that its losses narrowed by a massive €3.16 million in 2010.

VHI HEALTHCARE HAS reported a dramatic drop in losses in its annual report for 2010, which shows an overall deficit of €3.1 million for the year compared with €41.7 million for 2009.

The insurer outraged customers in January when it announced plans to hike the price of some policies by as much as 40 per cent.

The report shows that VHI spent €1.307 billion on customers’ needs in 2010 – a figure that was 1.4 per cent lower than 2009. The company cites several reasons for this, including the reduction in the rate paid to private hospitals for procedures; reductions in the rate paid to consultants; and the fact that there was no increase in cost of private beds in public hospitals that year.

Chief Executive of Vhi Healthcare, Jimmy Tolan, said: “While the financial performance in 2010 was an improvement on 2009, we still incurred significant underwriting losses of €25 million and we still have to improve our annual performance by €60m in order to fund our customers’ healthcare needs and also to meet the requirements of the Central Bank and European Commission in due course.”

Vhi described the government’s health care system plans as “radical and ambitious”

The most significant healthcare expenditure in 2010 was for treatment of the following conditions:

  1. Cancer & related care – €227.9 million
  2. Orthopaedic care (including hip replacements etc) – €168.4 million
  3. Heart & circulatory system – €160.3 million
  4. Digestive System – €122.8 million
  5. Investigation of undefined conditions, symptoms – €107.8 million