A letter sent by the Chief Executive of Laya Health to Minister for Health Simon Harris claims that people with private health insurance are being pressurised and bullied into foregoing their right to be treated as public patients.
The letter, which was sent last February, was part of a number of documents obtained by RTÉ's This Week under a Freedom of Information request.
In the letter, Dónal Clancy outlined several cases from hospitals around the country where their members said they were bullied and threatened and told they would not be treated if they did not waive their right to be treated as a public patient and allow hospitals to bill their insurance.
Mr Jim Dowdall of Irish Life Health has said its members are being treated in a similar fashion.
Speaking to RTÉ's This Week, Mr Dowdall said that Irish Life Health encountered a case where a member, who was treated publicly and discharged, was later sent a letter requesting they sign a retrospectively dates waiver form and insurance form.
Mr Dowdall said the letter warned if the documents were not signed, the patient's account would be passed to a debt collection agency.
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A change in the law in January 2014 provided for hospitals to charge private patients insurance, if they consented, for the full amount up to €800 a night even if they were only treated on a chair or trolley.
The changes, when introduced, were aimed at raising no more than an additional €30m a year from insurers but at the end of last year the overall amount from insurers had increased by almost €160m.
Insurers have been advising their members not to sign away their right to be a public patient unless they were assured semi-private or private accommodation.
On foot of the letter, Mr Harris ordered a review and this concluded that the additional revenue coming from insurers was not the result of public hospitals treating a disproportionately higher number of private patients at the expense of public patients.
In respect of the claims that patients with insurance are being pressurised into foregoing their right to public treatment, the Department of Health said that it is working with the Health Service Executive across every hospital to ensure the law is being applied consistently and that it intends to establish a monitoring system.
Both the Department and the HSE have said they want to talk to insurers on a new system of waiver forms to address the issues that have arisen.
Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher said putting pressure on patients to sign away their right to public treatment was not acceptable.
"This type of orchestrated attempt at increasing income via private patients through means which clearly go against the ethos of a public health system cannot be ever tolerated.
"Some of the means of convincing patients to sign waivers go completely against every code of ethics that should underpin a public health system," he added.
Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin said the fundamental problem was the use of public beds by private patients in public hospitals. But he said until this could be phased out over a number of years, the HSE and Dept of Health should ensure that private patients are not forced to sign away their right to public treatment.
