Patients treated abroad waiting six months for HSE refund

Updated / Tuesday, 27 Oct 2026 09:47

Getty

Irish patients on waiting lists here who have sought treatment in hospitals abroad, under an EU Scheme, have been left waiting six months or more in some cases to get their money back from the HSE.

Patients use savings or borrow from financial institutions to pay the treatment upfront, while awaiting HSE reimbursement, and many treatments can cost over €10,000.

The HSE has acknowledged the delays in payments and told RTÉ News that it regrets the inconvenience to patients who use the EU Cross Border Directive scheme.

It said the current processing can see patients wait five or six months to be repaid.

The HSE's target time to complete patient applications and reimbursement is 30 working days.

It said some delays can be even longer, depending on the completeness of the application and clinical complexity.

The HSE said it plans to have processing times back to normal by February next year, and to have substantially reduced the backlog by the end of this year.

With rising hospital waiting lists here, demand for care under the Cross Border Directive has increased significantly in recent years.

Last year, the HSE funded 6,889 patients at a cost of over €13m.

For the first half of this year, 3,550 applications have been funded at a cost of €7.3m.

The HSE said work is progressing in line with the Minister for Health's target to improve processing times back to around 30 working days.

The service has been assigned extra resources to reduce the backlog, it added.

The rise in patients seeking to have their care provided abroad is also put down to the increasing population, rising life expectancy, more chronic illness, and advances in treatment options.

The HSE Cross Border Directive allows Irish residents receive planned medical treatment in another EU country and claim a refund of the costs.

Patients must pay the hospital abroad the costs upfront and then claim a refund from the HSE.

The patient is reimbursed the actual cost of the treatment abroad, or the cost of the same treatment in the Irish public system.

The scheme does not cover travel or hotel costs.

The EU scheme came into force in 2011, and member states were given until 2013 to transpose it into national law.