As we approach the end of our time in France, I’m feeling the pressure to take advantage of our affordable healthcare here before we return to the U.S. I’m looking forward to many things back home, but the broken healthcare system is definitely not one of them.
We were required to take out travel health insurance as part of our visa application, to prove that we’d be covered if we needed care during our time here. We found some basic plans that cost less than 1000€ for the year, but for our peace of mind, we sprang for a comprehensive plan, which cost about 3000€ for our family of three for the year. (Through April International, if you're interested.) It’s not cheap — until you compare that to the $12,000/year American plans I’m currently considering. And we’ll likely pay significantly more if we have to see anyone besides our basic doctors, get any scans, or go to the ER.
We also each applied for a carte vitale, basically our passport to the public French healthcare system, which is available to anyone who’s lived here for three or more months. With that, we would have been able to cancel the remainder of our travel insurance policy and enjoy the benefits of nearly free healthcare while we’re here in France. Unfortunately, we’re still waiting on the cards to arrive months later, which I’ve heard is not at all uncommon. But even without them, we’ve found medical care here to be shockingly affordable compared to the U.S.
I’ve mentioned many of these visits in past blog posts, like when Oli got a big cut on his leg and had to go to the ER for stitches, and they didn’t charge us a cent. (Compare that to the $2500 bill I got from an ER visit in the U.S., which is what I paid after my insurance submitted its share). Todd and Oli have both gone to the dentist here as well, for 40€ each. The visits were pretty basic, but sufficient.
And I have found a primary care doctor here that I really like — one who specializes in functional medicine and hormone health and micronutrition. She wears Sezane shirts and scuffed Adidas, and she charges just 30€ per session. With her help, I’ve been attempting to suss out the root cause of my anxiety and hormonal issues, something that my doctors in the U.S. never had the time or inclination to do.
My doctor’s office is nothing like the sterile spaces you’ll find in the U.S. — it feels like a room in someone’s very grand French apartment. From what I understand, many doctor’s offices are like that here. She’s also not equipped to do bloodwork or other tests in her office, so I have to take her orders to one of the many labs in town and then they report back with the results.
At my doctor’s suggestion, I’ve also met with an osteopathe, which is sort of like a more gentle chiropractor. They’re generally viewed as alternative medicine practitioners in the U.S., but they’re very much embraced here from infancy onward, for issues ranging from pain and tension to inflammation. After complaining about tension headaches and GERD, my osteopathe treated me to an hour-long session that felt a bit like a massage and a bit like voodoo. Afterward, she assured me I’d start feeling better soon, and warned me that I might feel a bit tired. Sure enough, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck after dinner and collapsed into bed. My symptoms began to fade the next day.
I’ll admit that it’s intimidating navigating all of this healthcare stuff without having a firm grasp on the language. Thankfully, when searching for a doctor on DoctoLib (the website we use for making doctor’s appointments), I can filter by language spoken, and we’ve had no problem finding practitioners who speak decent English in Bordeaux. It may be different in smaller towns. The trickier bit is visiting places like labs or radiology centers, where people may or may not speak English. But even there, I’ve had no trouble getting by.
And then of course, some things are just done very differently here. For instance, when I went to the radiologist for a pelvic ultrasound, the nurse instructed me to drop trou and hop on the table. No gown, no sheet, just waiting for my doctor, Winnie-the-Pooh style. Even more surprising, the scan was performed by an actual doctor who explained her findings as she was giving the exam. In the U.S., I’ve always had scans like ultrasounds performed by techs, who then shared their findings with the doctor, who eventually passed them on to me — sometimes days later. It was always a long and anxiety-inducing process, and I much prefer the efficiency of the French. I immediately received assurance of my reproductive health and an explanation for my heavy periods. Five minutes after the exam, I’d paid my bill (125€, which will be reimbursed by my insurance) and received a print-out of the ultrasound to keep in my files.
Having access to high-quality, affordable healthcare has been one of the best parts of living in France. It's such a stark contrast to our healthcare experience in the U.S., which can be prohibitively expensive and confusing to navigate. It’s stressful enough to worry about me or someone in my family getting sick or injured, but it definitely takes some pressure off when we know that we won’t have to drain our savings to stay healthy.