A forray into French healthcare
Before coming, everything I knew about French healthcare I learned from Michael Moore. That is to say, I didn’t know much, but I liked what i did. Today I learned a bit more from personal experience and have only good things to say.
My 2 year old son has had mild asthma in the past, which we have an inhaler for back home. We neglected to bring it, of course, and in the course of dealing with jet lag he developed a concerning cough. I immediately got on the phone with Kaiser, our HMO back home. The woman I spoke with was pretty clueless about how we might fill a prescription internationally, so we decided to take a more direct approach and hit the streets.
I learned from Fabien the big green crosses above storefronts indicate pharmacies (I had decided they were taxi stands, for some reason). My wife and I visited one just down the street. There we were directed to a doctor’s office, also just down the street. We walked there and, after figuring out how to get the door open, went inside and spoke with a nurse and (almost immediately) a doctor. They said we could bring our son in right away, no appointment necessary.
We walked back down the street to our apartment and got Max from his nanny. The three of us then walked back to the doctor and were seen after less than an hour’s wait.
The doctor himself was very friendly. He worked out if a small office with an exam table right next to his desk. This was a much less intimidating environment for my son, who is usually pretty unhappy about visiting the doctor. The doctor listened to his lungs, checked a few other things, and said everything seemed fine. He wrote us a prescription for an inhaler and, on our request, some diaper cream (that was some interesting miming).
I then braced myself for the bill. A whopping 30€. I paid in cash.
Filling the scrip was also very easy and affordable. The meds were around 10€, but the inhaler mask was 40€.
We felt very good about how smoothly this all went. Everyone was helpful and timely, it was all quite affordable and, most importantly, my son is fine.
