Tag: Insurance

Life in France

A not-so emergency room visit

The bench with one less splinter

One of the reasons we created this blog was to make sure that Americans who were planning a permanent move to France could find details that didn’t appear to be readily available five years ago when we started the investigative process. There seemed to have been ample information for our English-speaking cousins, the British, but some of that didn’t apply because they were part of the European Union so it resembled in some ways moving from one US state to another. Because of Brexit, the dealings with the government that have always been a requirement for us including visas, residence cards, applying for national health insurance, and getting a French driver’s license are now equally important to Her Majesty’s subjects. Today’s health topic, that unexpectedly follows the medical discussion from our most recent blog post could be of use to anyone wondering about our experience with urgent medical care. Continue reading “A not-so emergency room visit”

Bob7 Comments
Life in France

Seeing the eye doctor

City walls and gate view from the ophthalmologist’s office

Luckily neither Bill nor I have any health issues so the few visits to medical personnel that we’ve had since moving to France have all been what here is often called a contrôl that we think of as a checkup. We’ve been to our family doctor, a clinic for blood work, the dentist, a dermatologist, and most recently the ophthalmologist. Visits like that in the US were always stressful for me so when you add in the challenge of conducting those encounters in another language, I can feel my blood pressure rising. Because we get many questions from blog readers about the French universal health care system, of which we are now members, we like to include our own experiences that might help those wondering what to expect. The highlighted links above will take you to the previous related posts and today I’ll talk about our latest rendez-vous.  Continue reading “Seeing the eye doctor”

Bob5 Comments
Dealing with government, Life in France

It’s mutual, I’m sure

Top-up insurance protection from Que Choisir website

In the October blog post Universal health care, I wrote about how everyone in France must have health insurance. We had received our Carte Vitale, the ID card to show that we are part of the French healthcare system, that we present at the doctor’s office, hospital, laboratory, pharmacy, etc. Coverage is generally 70 percent of the cost of the procedure leaving the patient to pay the remaining 30 percent out of pocket or to buy a private top-up insurance policy that costs between 50 and 100 euros per month per person. Coverage for dental, vision, and hearing problems will increase to 100 percent within 2 years. Anyone who has a long term disease such as cancer or diabetes is already covered at 100 percent as are people who are unable to afford additional insurance. We’ve now signed up for assurance maladie complémentaire more commonly called a mutuelle. Continue reading “It’s mutual, I’m sure”

Bob2 Comments
Dealing with government, Life in France

Universal health care

Carte Vitale brochure

Everyone who lives and/or works in France is required to have health insurance. In fact, it’s treated as a fundamental right in the Constitution with the Preamble stating that the Nation “shall guarantee to all, notably to children, mothers and elderly workers, protection of their health….” When applying for our visa that allowed us to stay here during the first year we had to prove that we had health insurance coverage that would take care of any emergency situations plus pay for sending us back to the US for treatment of anything serious and/or long term during the one-year validity of our visa. A common benefit of travel insurance is repatriation to the country where your trip began, so a policy for that was easy to find and accepted for the visa application. Once you’ve lived in France for at least 3 continuous months you become eligible to apply for Protection Universelle Maladie that we think of as universal health care and we have now been accepted. Continue reading “Universal health care”

Bob7 Comments
Life in France

Check→in

Making coins the medieval way

If there’s one thing that you learn when you move overseas, it’s to be prepared. Whether it’s a government agency, a utility, or a private business you are meeting with, it always makes sense to take an original and at least one copy of any document that any of these officials have asked from you before. To open a bank account we anticipated the need for our passports and proof of address but a marriage certificate and tax forms weren’t at the top of our list. Luckily both were at the bottom of the file folder that we take to every appointment so it was easy enough to produce those. To cancel our prepaid renters’ insurance, we needed a handwritten statement swearing that we no longer lived at that address, but at least we could write that out on the spot (with a lot of guidance from the woman who helped us). What we weren’t prepared for was receiving a refund check for the remaining insurance that we weren’t going to use. How were we going to deal with that? Continue reading “Check→in”

Bob2 Comments
Life in France

Step into my laboratory

Which way to the lab?
Which way to the lab?

A couple of days ago I wrote about our first experience of going to a doctor in France and this is the follow up to that. Although we both have been going in for annual check ups in the US for years, that’s apparently not really the norm here. Your employer might require, and pay for, this kind of visit, but our neighbors have said that typically they see the doctor only if they are sick. We were still going to be more comfortable if we were at least in the files of a medical office near us, even if just to have a “no problems found” status. Continue reading “Step into my laboratory”

Bob4 Comments
Dealing with government, Life in France

Doctor, doctor

The building where our doctor works
The building where our doctor works

Going to the doctor has never been at the top of my favorite-things-to-do list. Luckily, those visits have almost always been limited to an annual physical where the cost was covered by my health insurance. Just before we moved from the US to France we each had one of those yearly exams and as our first year anniversary of living in another country approached it was time to do it all over again. This has been quite the learning experience. Continue reading “Doctor, doctor”

Bob2 Comments