“Patients are expected to pay for their consults when they arrive at their clinic and will be directed to reception to pay for additional services at the end of their consult,” the email read.
“An admin fee of $10 will be levied against any payments outstanding after two days.”
The Doctors Napier Group has been contacted three times over the past week for further comment.
According to The Doctors Napier website, the cost for seeing a doctor is $55 for an enrolled adult (over 25 years).
Napier resident Anita Lamonte, who is a patient with The Doctors Napier, said the changes were concerning and could turn people away.
Lamonte said some patients may not have the money on any given day to pay for a doctor’s visit - and required more than two days to pay.
“Absolutely it has got to put people off,” she said. “How do they see the doctor if they know they can’t afford it on a particular day?”
She said she recently called The Doctors for a phone prescription and “was told I had to pay straight away”.
“I said ‘I can pay you internet banking’ because that is how I usually do it,” she said.
“I ended up paying online and was hoping the payment went through within [the deadline] so I didn’t get charged the $10 fee.”
The Doctors Napier Group has set up a new payment system, which allows patients to pay quickly through a link sent via text or email.
Lamonte claimed the fee for some services had also gone up, and she said the cost for her repeat script had risen from $18 to $22.
“I think $4 is quite a high increase from $18.”
She said that was in contrast to the Government scrapping a $5 co-payment fee for prescription medication earlier this year.
The Doctors Napier Group represents The Doctors Napier, The Doctors Greenmeadows, The Doctors Ahuriri, and The Doctors EIT (which is temporarily closed).
Gary Hamilton-Irvine is a Hawke’s Bay-based reporter who covers a range of news topics including business, councils, breaking news and cyclone recovery. He formerly worked at News Corp Australia.
