Since arriving here in March we (Dan) have had several occasions to learn about the Social Health Care System. For the most part we have been impressed with it. When you need to make an appointment with a doctor, you just call and set up the time, no matter what kind of specialty. This saves the expense of seeing the family doctor first, if you have a known disease or problem.
I have suffered from Crohn’s disease for many years, and when I arrived in March I needed an injection of Remacaide very soon because I was on an eight week regimen. So I looked online to find the best gastroenterologists and found one that could speak English and the appointment was in a week or so. The doctor is a professor at a university hospital, so his office is in the hospital. I saw him and the infusion was set up in the time frame that I needed.
The only problem that I have as an expat is payment. Before you will be seen or treated you have to pay. Seeing the specialist was only $45 but the Remacaide was around $4000 USD, so I had to alert my credit card company. The hospitals are nice, well lit and comfortable. When I came back for the infusion they had a nice recliner, wifi, a volunteer to serve juice, cookies and soup. They also had plenty of magazines to read. The only problem was that it took awhile compared to having the infusion done at my house in Tennessee. They had to make sure everything was done properly and that I was okay afterwards.
The big problem was with my wonderful Blue Cross insurance from the US. They required a proper itemized bill to pay from the provider. That seemed reasonable but the hospital in Belgium had up to six months to provide us with one. (It took about six months and three weeks.) They already had their money and if they normally are paid by the Government they know they will be paid so they do not get in a hurry.
If we had been in the health care system, when we arrived at the hospital we would go to the desk for appointments and payment and present our card, which would be swiped like a credit card, and then we would pay the small difference. For an office visit outside of the hospital, we would pay the fee and then submit it to our Mutuelle later and they would reimburse us for everything except three dollars or so.
You have your choice of Mutuelle (private insurance administrator). The Mutuelle is interested in keeping you healthy, so they provide incentives for you to take care of yourself, like half off electric toothbrushes and discounts to gyms etc. You have your choice of GP, dentist, optometrist, chiropractor, homeopath, acupuncturist etc. You can hardly buy any over the counter drugs except in a pharmacy. For prescriptions you pay just a few dollars, better than what I paid with my prescription plan.
We have found the health care system to be very interesting and nice. We like it better than in the US, and it is much better than what we know of Canada and Great Britain. For us to purchase their coverage is less than 300 euro a month. For citizens it can be as low as 6 euro a month, depending on your salary. (They are already in the tax system, and we would be paying our way in.) We will probably switch eventually because of the problem with having to be reimbursed by Blue Cross.
I don’t think that you could just bring the system to the United States and expect it to work as well as it does here. We thought that this would be an interesting blog subject. If you have any questions or ideas, let us know.
