Updated 18.16pm

OF THE €162 million owing to the HSE by health insurers at the end of 2010, about 68 per cent is due from VHI Healthcare.

According to the Medical Independent, Quinn Healthcare owes about 20 per cent of the unpaid private patient charges.

Aviva owes some 9 per cent and other schemes, such as the ESB and the Gardaí programmes, owe 3 per cent of the €162 million.

VHI refuted that the money is owed by them.

“It is incorrect to state that this money is owned by Vhi Healthcare,” said a spokesperson for the insurer.

“We have not received any claims or invoices for the those amounts.”

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, the spokesperson said, “It is worth noting that a claim only arises when we receive the hospital’s and consultant’s invoices. Currently, this takes private hospitals approximately 45 days and public hospitals approximately 120 days.”

The amounts in question are all from public hospitals and no completed claims have been received to date.

“Vhi Healthcare processes claims within three to four days of receiving all necessary documentation in support of a claim. In addition, we are currently working with hospitals on the development of e-claiming, which will expedite the lead-time between a patient’s discharge from hospital and the submission of their claim to a private health insurer.”

For more, see Priscilla Lynch’s full report in the Medical Independent>