Review of medical cards outsourced to German company.

Uriel.

Daith wrote: »

Nope. It's all automated or should be from a database and mail merge. You clearly have no idea.

You clearly don't. It "should be".

Seriously, one person taking exception to a question on a form that asks something along the lines of "do you still suffer from the condition described above", leads to this kind of discussion is ridiculous. Let's change all the forms because someone can't just ask the bloody question.

The only reason the question was highlighted at all was because the woman was upset a out her child not qualifying for the medical card anymore.

How many hundreds or thousands of people fill in these forms every year and just answer the questions and get on with it.

Uriel.

SpaceTime wrote: »

All the EU says is that *if* you're outsourcing it has to go to a competitive tender. The Minister for Health or the HSE decided to do the outsourcing, nothing to do with the EU.

Irish companies actually benefit hugely by winning other countries' public tenders too. So it's really kinda all swings and roundabouts.

It also cleaned up the tendering process and undermined a lot of cronyism both in Ireland and in other countries where those in the know and 'national champions' used to win all tenders in the past.

The Irish Government however is the policy driver here so don't let them off the hook by blaming the EU. Nobody's forcing them to outsource anything.

It's a very strange argument to have... Getting angry at transparency and openness as to how government spends public money and who they award contracts to.

SpaceTime

Uriel. wrote: »

It's a very strange argument to have... Getting angry at transparency and openness as to how government spends public money and who they award contracts to.

It's all that same blame everyone else agenda, especially anyone who is far enough away to be unable to partake in the debate.

Notice how the Government will also blame its proxy the HSE as if it were some kind of alien entity...

Dravokivich

Stheno wrote: »

Can't be german then.

There seems to be a flaw in the system that it doesn't differentiate between permanent and non permanent conditions, and that's a sad reflection on the IT behind it.

Not really. As you know yourself the IT will only do what someone has required it to be set up to do. I've argue'd against clients and given them in no uncertain terms the reasons why their orders/requests/specs were wrong and they still went through with it. They'd gotten tools/management software which didn't met the requirements of their end users and just left them to go the long way around getting things resolved. They continue to go full steam ahead with such arrogance.

Woodville56

SpaceTime wrote: »

Also the state is hardly under resourced in terms of administrators. Surely they could just be moved around to process this in house? They're already on the payrole and with modern IT they shouldn't even have to change desk.

Medical card administration was previously managed at local office level in each Community Care area until some bright spark in the higher echelons of the HSE / Dept of Health decided it would be more efficient and improve uniformity in decision making to centralise the medical card admin process in Dublin! What they really intended was to restrict the number of cards issued thus saving money !! The view was held at DoHC level that local administrators were being "too soft " on marginal / discretional cases - thus the present debacle where eligibility is based on a purely financial calculation of means etc, with no consideration of social or other pertinent factors as often arise in hardship cases. No fault to the admin staff in Central Processing, it's just that they do not have the experience or insight that their local office colleagues would have in deciding on marginal or hardship cases - it's all about expediency, control and saving money really , but at the expense of genuinely needy people

bumper234

Daith wrote: »

Nope. It's all automated or should be from a database and mail merge. You clearly have no idea.

Lol there's your answer


MAILMERGE can solve everything


Thanks Microsoft

Sh1tbag OToole

Isnt Bertelsmann the crowd that were suing Napster back in the day?

Daith

bumper234 wrote: »

Lol there's your answer


MAILMERGE can solve everything


Thanks Microsoft

Nope apparently one form fits all. Why go to any effort at all. Or maybe the HSE hand writes letters to patients does it. I mean it can't even get letters sent from one office to the other without losing them. :rolleyes:

So what if a parent is being asked to state whether their child's still has a permanent illness. This isn't about empathy. It's about laziness.

There's no disadvantage to what I'm suggesting and I haven't seen a reason from you as to why not to implement it.

mickydoomsux

Daith wrote: »

This isn't about empathy.

This is the only sensible thing you've said in this thread.

It a question on a piece of paper. Answer it and get on with your life. Such entitlement and preciousness on display with this nonsense.

bumper234

Daith wrote: »

Nope apparently one form fits all. Why go to any effort at all. Or maybe the HSE hand writes letters to patients does it. I mean it can't even get letters sent from one office to the other without losing them. :rolleyes:

So what if a parent is being asked to state whether their child's still has a permanent illness. This isn't about empathy. It's about laziness.

There's no disadvantage to what I'm suggesting and I haven't seen a reason from you as to why not to implement it.

Cost, Simple as that.

Daith

mickydoomsux wrote: »

This is the only sensible thing you've said in this thread.

It a question on a piece of paper. Answer it and get on with your life. Such entitlement and preciousness on display with this nonsense.

Have you ever filled in the form? Oh nevermind. People get on with your lives.

Daith

bumper234 wrote: »

Cost, Simple as that.

What cost?

bumper234

Daith wrote: »

What cost?

All of the forms will need to be reprinted and even then at the end of it you will still get some people who will not be happy with the questions. Standardized forms are the way to go and has been said already just fill the forms in answer the questions and move on.

Daith

bumper234 wrote: »

All of the forms will need to be reprinted and even then at the end of it you will still get some people who will not be happy with the questions. Standardized forms are the way to go and has been said already just fill the forms in answer the questions and move on.

Fair enough. People should just move on and stop moaning.

bumper234 wrote: »

Residents near croke park are virtually prisoners in their own homes on concert nights.

Quit your moaning and move on.

mickydoomsux

Daith wrote: »

Have you ever filled in the form?

I tried to but i simply couldn't.

I broke down crying 4 times at the insensitive questions on it before i had to give up completely

If only someone from the HSE had personally come round to my house and coaxed the answer out of me in a sensitive manner.

bumper234

Daith wrote: »

Fair enough. People should just move on and stop moaning.



Quit your moaning and move on.

Lol

Apples and Oranges.

What an idiotic riposte :rolleyes:

Daith

bumper234 wrote: »

Lol

Apples and Oranges.

What an idiotic riposte :rolleyes:

Nope. When you feel you are being treated unfairly it's a big deal "prisoners in our own homes". When other people feel they've been treated unfairly they should just get over it and move on because money.

You think your issue is big and important but dismiss other people's issues and tell them to move on. It's interesting.

It's just a question on a form. So what. It's just a concert.

bumper234

Daith wrote: »

Nope. When you feel you are being treated unfairly it's a big deal "prisoners in our own homes". When other people feel they've been treated unfairly they should just get over it and move on because money.

You think your issue is big and important but dismiss other people's issues and tell them to move on. It's interesting.

It's just a question on a form. So what. It's just a concert.

There is a MASSIVE difference between having 100's of thousands of people walking past your house over the space of 5 days and having to answer a question on a form.

SpaceTime

bumper234 wrote: »

Lol there's your answer


MAILMERGE can solve everything


Thanks Microsoft

Mail Merge predates microsoft by a long time. I'd say IBM were doing it in the 50s. Spamming people was one of the first things they used computers for commercially.

I'm sure the HSE mainframe can handle it if you put in the right punch cards.

Daith

bumper234 wrote: »

There is a MASSIVE difference between having 100's of thousands of people walking past your house over the space of 5 days and having to answer a question on a form.

To you! The person answering whether his son still has down's syndrome once again might not think you even have an issue.

So again, people should shut up and stop moaning and follow your advice. Including yourself.

Boombastic

bumper234 wrote: »

There is a MASSIVE difference between having 100's of thousands of people walking past your house over the space of 5 days and having to answer a question on a form.

what if the people walking by are protestors unhappy with their jobs in the medical card office?

steddyeddy

Toots* wrote: »

That's nothing new I'm afraid. My little sister has Down Syndrome and every couple of years they send out a massive questionnaire for my mum to fill in about her disability so they can re-assess her medical card. Last time it happened my mum flipped the lid and rang the HSE to ask why they keep sending out the form cos it's not like my sister is going to wake up one morning and magically not have Down Syndrome anymore!

You'd think with disabilities like that they wouldn't bother sending out the review forms, especially when you think of the cost of sending the forms, plus the cost of man-hours to process them, and field the angry phone calls from frustrated card holders.

Are you joking?? That's f-ing disgusting.

geeky

SpaceTime wrote: »

While I'm the last person to defend the HSE, it's also possible that they've no database at all.

I wouldn't be surprised if they'd no notion of why people had the cards and effectively are now asking people to reapply to gather that information.

Some of these public bodies had spectacularly chaotic paper-based systems that evolved organically rather than being designed.

The medical cards had been processed very locally for a long time so, I'm guessing they've a total mess of local databases.

It seems to me that they're working blind.

They could do it a bit more tactfully though!

It's genuinely frightening that your theory is entirely, entirely plausible.

banie01

Since this is AH....
First some xenophobic hyberbole!
So outsourcing to a German company is the basis for a question such as
''Does your child ''still'' have Down Syndrome?'' or however the question regarding a permanent disability was phrased.
I never realised that the Eugenics and Racial purity program those poor poor Germans experienced in their fairly recent past was so ''successful'' that it has caused them to believe that the pesky extra chromosome that leads to that condition is curable!


Now my own semi-serious take on it.
The HSE is between a rock and hard place here, yes savings need to be made and a more efficient means of managing the eligibility to a medical would go a long way towards that.
The problem is that they are targeting a segment of our society that will more often than not actually need the support and use of medical services more than the rest of us, and that specific targeting of those most in need....
When there are much more savings available to the HSE in terms of improving overall efficiency in many ways, centralizing procurement, and indeed in eliminating non productive headcount(the infamous ''middle-management'' echelon) really sticks in the craw to see those in genuine need of support from the HSE have to fight their corner.
Its as if they are taking the easy option by looking for ''savings'' outside their organisational role, rather than taking a hard look inward and actually enforcing the changes needed to make the HSE and efficient and fit for purpose organisation.

SafeSurfer

Daith wrote: »

Nope. When you feel you are being treated unfairly it's a big deal "prisoners in our own homes". When other people feel they've been treated unfairly they should just get over it and move on because money.

You think your issue is big and important but dismiss other people's issues and tell them to move on. It's interesting.

It's just a question on a form. So what. It's just a concert.

An excellent response. It really disappoints me when people assume others are being petty and precious about issues that affect them and then take umbrage when others don't share their sense of outrage over issues that effect them. Some people have become so used to our society being referred to as our economy and our citizens being merely classed as taxpayers that they can only see the world in terms of euros and cents.

Our country is not a corporation.

Sulla Felix

Toots* wrote: »

That's nothing new I'm afraid. My little sister has Down Syndrome and every couple of years they send out a massive questionnaire for my mum to fill in about her disability so they can re-assess her medical card. Last time it happened my mum flipped the lid and rang the HSE to ask why they keep sending out the form cos it's not like my sister is going to wake up one morning and magically not have Down Syndrome anymore!

You'd think with disabilities like that they wouldn't bother sending out the review forms, especially when you think of the cost of sending the forms, plus the cost of man-hours to process them, and field the angry phone calls from frustrated card holders.

Nope, from a costs perspective it's a lot quicker just to treat everyone the same. I know it can be frustrating to be on the recieving end, but if they had to check every name against a "do not send" list the admin cost would be higher. And mistakes would happen and the odd parent of a Downs syndrome child would still get the letter, and arguably the outrage would be even biggerr etc etc.

mickydoomsux

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Our country is not a corporation.

But our government should be like one.

steveone

Smidge wrote: »

I personally wouldn't have a great amount of faith in the DPA anymore.

Hah especially since the worst thing than can happen is you have to retire...

steveone

sdeire wrote: »

No, you'd sue the HSE. Of course it doesn't have any money, so good luck with that.

It's good that the cards are being reviewed. There's no need for some people who have them to be issued with them, and there's plenty of people who would actually benefit from them who aren't eligible.

Each and every application for a card should be means tested individually. Employ a couple of actuaries to do this rather than basing it on the frankly farcical situation of basing it solely on a weekly income limit which takes no note at all of the person's ability to pay for medical expenses, other than a generic "allowance for reasonable rent/childcare expenses".

Reasonably confident a review will discover more who are eligible than those who are not.
What happens when a person who for example has a family-and decides to ignore their own ailing health to provide for the family instead? What would the actuary do then? Whats the financial term for 'offer it for your sins'?

Its bad enough that a civil servant has the power to over rule a doctor when deciding
A disability claim without giving out personal information to any dog or divil!

We're back to technical possibility Vs harsh reality.

steveone

Patients are not commodities. Half the problem with the hospitals in this country are that more box ticking goes on than direct care-i heard a doctor ask a demented elderly person to evaluate how they were feeling on a scale of one to five..
What does that even achieve? If she said she felt like julie andrews on a hill he'd have sent her home another one cured. Health and wellbeing should not be farmed out on a price per head basis imo. Too much emphasis on questionnaires and wonderful data- the irony might be if more effort was put into effective treatment than cost saving inititaves the cost might just go down