Two weeks ago, my doctor directed me to rest in bed for the next 4 weeks and limit my walking around to about 30 minutes per day. I was 32 weeks pregnant, but the baby was knocking on the door to get out. This means I cannot go grocery shopping or even clean the house.
Since my doctor visit, my husband has not only been working full time, but also doing the cleaning, laundry and shopping. He has been taking great care of me and getting me anything I need throughout the day. He is the best! However, after two weeks of this schedule, it is easy to see that he needs a little break.
My sweet French mother-in-law visited us the other day with a delicious homemade chocolate cake and did a deep cleaning of the house. The house needed a good dusting and thorough cleaning. She also gave us a valuable piece of advice: call our private health insurance company.
Our private health insurance in France, Adrea Mutuelle-Muti, has 5 different plans available. We have the third level plan for around 45 euros/month/person. Apparently, it includes 100% coverage of hiring a house cleaning service for short periods. We called our health insurance company, who then faxed a paper to the nearest cleaning company. When the representative from the cleaning company called us, she said that within the next 20 days, we are able to have 6 hours of covered cleaning. It was as simple as that! We do not have to worry about paperwork or getting reimbursed – Adrea Mutuelle-Muti will pay them directly.
The only downside is that the cleaning service had a hard time finding someone who lives near us to come over and clean. We live out in the country, so those that live in the city would not have this problem. The cleaning company is going to send someone from their office, which is a bit far but very nice of them.
We are very excited! This person will be coming here every 5 days for 2 hours each time to dust and really give this place a deep cleaning. I am still in shock that this is covered through our private health insurance in France.
I have never heard of such a thing in the US. We are so busy fighting them to cover illnesses and hospital visits, nevermind expecting them to possibly cover us for things like this. But for people are sick or injured, having someone clean the home during recovery is such a wonderful service! And my husband can finally take a well deserved break from at least one item on his to-do list.
nadia says
is there any nanny(nounou) services also available through private insurance? im new in france and need to learn a lot..