Even though France has social insurance, having private insurance helps a great deal – especially when you are pregnant!
I actually fell and broke my finger within a week of finding out I was pregnant, so we have surely been getting our money’s worth. However, our current provider does not connect directly with social insurance for processing claims. This means that every time we have a claim, we have to log onto Social Security’s website to download a PDF to get reimbursed.
We were originally told by one of the employees that we could only submit once every 3 months after social security mails us our quarterly statements! But he called several times and someone said that the PDFs will work. Seriously, you have to call the same office 100 times in order to really get anywhere.
We have decided to change insurance companies because as time goes by, it will start to truly get annoying to constantly have to send this statement to them. Also, we will get reimbursed much quicker by having a private insurer with a direct line to Social Security. We have to wait until December for our contract to end before switching, but at least we know who we will be going to when the time comes.
So ladies, moral of the story – when searching for a private insurer in France, make sure that you will not have to send them any forms in order to get reimbursed. All you should have to do is show your social security card at your doctor’s visit. That’s it! Social security will then send the info over to your private insurer immediately so that you can be reimbursed within days. Oh, and the company we are switching to is even cheaper and with better coverage!
Image Credit: Feng Yu at fotolia.com
Leave a Reply