About 2,500 doctors and dentists have been targeted by the tax authorities as probable tax dodgers.HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will send them warning letters in the next few days, telling them to pay within 21 days or face possible prosecution.

The threats are part of the Revenue’s efforts to recover unpaid tax owed by various professions and trades.

People selling on internet marketplaces, and electricians, will be targeted early next year.

As well as doctors and dentists, HMRC has already been paying special attention to the tax affairs of restaurant owners and their staff, plumbers, private tutors and scrap metal dealers, as well as people with money hidden in offshore bank accounts.

Last month, the Revenue added to its list of potential miscreants, announcing it would also be focusing on wealthy people who own homes abroad, as well as commodity traders.

Gary Ashford of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) said doctors and dentists should not ignore the Revenue’s latest letters.

“HMRC will either ‘make a determination’, which would result in the taxpayer incurring significant additional charges, or refer the case to their criminal investigations department with a view to prosecution,” he said.

“They have offered the carrot of a relatively low penalty rate for doctors to get their affairs in order and 1,500 health professionals took it up, bringing in £10m for the Exchequer.

“Now they are wielding the stick at those who have not come forward,” he said.

Mr Ashford pointed out that the Revenue had been gleaning information from employers of doctors and dentists, such as locum agencies, drug companies and medical insurance firms.

“What we are now seeing is HMRC starting to use that information, to identify who has not notified HMRC of all their tax liabilities,” Mr Ashford pointed out.

Some dentists are overcharging NHS patients by hundreds of pounds a time, an undercover investigation has found.
They are quoting patients up to £725 for work which should cost just £198, under the current three tiered payment system for NHS work.

They are also commonly neglecting to offer patients a scale and polish alongside a check-up, which should both be covered under the lowest tier of work, and are instead trying to sell it as a private add-on.

Dentists should provide NHS patients with all the treatment that is “clinically necessary in order to keep your mouth, teeth and gums healthy”, according to a Department of Health leaflet.

Patients should pay a single charge depending on the complexity of the work, even if more than one procedure needs to be carried out.

The leaflet makes clear: “If your dentist says that you need a particular type of treatment, you should not be asked to pay for it privately.”

However, an undercover reporter for Channel 4′s Dispatches programme, who needed root canal work and a new crown, was mis-quoted by three dentists he went to see.

Under current NHS rules, they should have said both procedures were covered under Band 3 pricing, costing the patient a single charge of £198.

But one quoted him £725 for both pieces of work; the second said the crown was covered by the £198 NHS fee, but that the root canal work would cost him £480 as a private piece of work; while the third gave a similar quote, saying the root canal work would cost £400.

Seven more undercover patients went for check ups at different dentists. None of them was offered a scale and polish as part of NHS treatment, although they all needed one, even though this should be included under Band 1 treatment, which at the time carried a £16.50 charge.

Three of them were told they could opt to see a hygienist privately, a service typically costing £25 to £40.

Dentists say the way the banding system works pushes them towards wrongly charging extra for treatment – known as ‘gaming’.

Danny Pretorius, who stopped doing NHS work last year, told the programme: “If you had to do everything by the book like you should do, it would be virtually impossible to earn a reasonable living.”

The current “payment by procedure” system, which was introduced by Labour in 2006, has been very unpopular with dentists.

Last December the Coalition announced it was to be abolished and replaced with a “payment by patient” system, to encourage more preventive work.

Pilots of three variants of the new scheme are due to start around the country this summer.

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We are committed to improving dental access, and we will achieve this sustainably by replacing the existing dental contract with one that pays dentists for the number of patients registered and the quality of the care they provide, rather than the number of treatments carried out.”

*Dispatches: The Truth About Your Dentist was broadcast on Channel 4 at 8pm last night (Monday).

The cost of NHS dentistry is prompting some patients to delay treatment or opt for cheaper care, a survey suggests.
The NHS Information Centre poll of more than 11,000 people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland found a fifth had put off treatment over price.

The Adult Dental Health Survey, which is carried out every decade, also found a quarter said cost influenced the kind of treatment they opted for.

NHS dental care is subsidised, but patients still pay towards their care.

There are three price bands ranging form £16.50 for a basic check-up to £198 for complex procedures, including crowns.

Pregnant women, those on low incomes and children are exempt from paying.

As well as highlighting cost, more than one in 10 said extreme anxiety deterred them from the dentists, while a fifth cited dissatisfaction with previous treatments.

Of those surveyed, 58% said they had tried to make an NHS dental appointment over the past three years, of which 92% were successful. However, that does not mean the rest did not have dental treatment as some would have paid for private care.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12849853

Dentists are still encouraging patients to return for excessive appointments and follow-ups, putting income ahead of care, research suggests.Data gathered by the Conservatives shows dentists to be “gaming the system”.

The Tory analysis, based on figures for 2008-09, suggests that 6.8 million slots could have been made available to those without access to an NHS dentist had they not been used for excessive appointment-setting or needless splitting of courses of treatment into separate sessions.

The Tories calculate the cost to NHS patients of “unnecessary charges” at £117 million, up from £109 million the year before. The burden represents a fifth of the £572 million charged each year for treating NHS patients.

Andy Burnham, the outging Health Secretary, acknowledged last year that dentisty remained “unfinished business” after the failure of a new dentists’ contract to address problems with a so-called drill and fill culture.

An independent review ordered by the labour Government, led by Jimmy Steele, of Newcastle University, found that dentistry was too preoccupied with treatment rather than prevention, and that dentists should be paid according to the number of patients on their list and penalised for poor work that leads to repeated visits.

Professor Steele’s proposals, which were accepted by the Government and put into pilot schemes, include rewarding dentists for registering new patients and building relationships with existing ones. Income is determined by the size of the patient-list, quality of care and the number of courses of treatment.

Andrew Lansley, the Tory health spokesman, who acquired the figures from parliamentary questions in February, said that the lack of political drive to rectify problems with dentistry was shown by its absence from the manifestos of Labour and the Lib Dems.

From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7115298.ece