Health Care In France

Health care in France is the best in the world according to the World Health Organization (WHO) who ranked it #1 out of 191 countries surveyed. And, if you’re a member of French Social Security (that is, you’re paying into the system), most of the cost of this extraordinary health care is covered.

Foreigners in France who have registered at their local social security office (Caisse Primaire d’Assurance Maladie, CPAM) can avail of the public system if they are:

• Employed in France;
• Making the necessary contributions;
• Of official retirement age in their home country.

Once you’ve registered, you’ll be issued a carte vitale which you need to present when seeing a health professional or going into hospital. You’ll also have to pay a monthly health insurance premium as well as contributing to the costs when seeing a doctor. The parcours de soins will apply, meaning you’ll need a GP referral to see a specialist.

Private health care is available in France but provides little advantage in terms of quality of care over the public system.

Even if you end up having to pay out of pocket for health care, treatment is affordable—fractions of the cost of the same care in the United States.

Plus, doctors still make home visits in France, and you can expect even a basic consultation to last half an hour.

All that said, when you’re under the weather here, don’t go right to the doctor. Start at the pharmacy on your block. Here in France, your pharmacist is someone you know and usually someone you spend some time talking to, even

if you’re just picking up band-aids. Anyone who works in a pharmacy in France is trained in pharmacology—no one is simply there to work the register—so anyone can help with any health-related question. Whatever your ailment, do your best to describe it or simply show the pharmacist if it’s visible and ask what they recommend. Odds are you won’t need a doctor at all. We can’t count the times we’ve bypassed a doctor’s visit by going right to the pharmacy.