health care

p. has given me the task of wading through the health care documents to decide what to buy. i had put it off because it seemed like a daunting task. finally, today i made myself try to decipher it. i really tried hard but couldn’t understand a thing. after he came home, i asked him some questions and in fact, the day was not totally wasted. it got me to a slightly deeper level of understanding and the ability to work on it a little more. i spoke further with various offices and am starting to get it.
we have national health insurance because he started a company (and is an eu citizen). the national health care pays something like 70% of the nationally approved price for treatment. then it is up to us to buy a supplemental insurance called a “mutuelle” to top up the rest. some doctors or treatments charge more than the approved price, and depending on what policy you get, the mutuelle can pay some or all of that. if one of us were working full time for a company, that company might have their own mutuelle coverage. through this process, i discovered that our new doctor charges what the french consider and exorbitant amount. for a normal doctor’s visit, the charge should be around 22 euros. 44 would be a lot, but acceptable. our doctor charges 80. maybe she can charge that because she speaks english, but guess i’ll be looking for another doctor. Print this post