In the last four years public hospitals have failed to collect over €76m of revenues owed to them by privately insured patients.
The figures obtained by the RTÉ Radio Investigative Unit show that 50 hospitals throughout the State are suffering a shortfall of €19m a year.
The figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that bureaucratic inefficiency in the administration of public hospitals is costing the State €76m a year.
Failure to fully complete insurance claim forms before they are submitted to the private health insurance companies results in the public health system losing 10% of money it is owed.
The worst offenders are Tallaght and St James's hospitals in Dublin; between them they are owed €21m by private patients in the last four years.
Waterford Regional Hospital has similarly failed to collect €7m.
Ten public hospitals across the country are missing between 15% and 25% of what they are owed.
The hospitals acknowledge their administrative shortcomings but say that the handwritten claims process operated by Vhi and BUPA places an onerous bureaucratic burden upon them.
Vhi Healthcare has defended its system, saying that it pays out on 98% of submitted claims within two to three weeks.
The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has told RTÉ that she believes that the practice of private fee earning within public hospitals needs to be reformed, but that this was a matter for the HSE and not her department.
