My wife & I have now been living in France, and paying our French taxes, for the past 4 years. It took some time (8 months) to receive our "Carte Vitale" but eventually we did.
When we recently applied for "Carte d'assistance europenne" (European coverage) to our local CPAM, we were told that we are not eligible and that any health expense incurred abroad (outside France) was to be reclaimed with our Country of Origin.
Although, presumably, we entered the French system under "migration status" when we first applied for French Healthcare, I fail to understand why French residents (BTW I am a Frenchman who has lived 40 years in the UK and my wife is British, and we both receive UK pension) are not able to receive French assistance when travelling abroad.
As an example of the inconvenience of this attitude : Two months ago, I had to have my prescription glasses replaced after braking a lens whilst in London (incidentally something 30-40% cheaper to do in the UK than over here -although the lenses are French made!) and I cannot start to imagine how my "claim" would be received by the UK authorities since we are now expatriates.
Are we the only ones treated this way ? What are effectively our rights under French and European law ?
Any comment or suggestion welcome.
Hi, yes it is. As for when the French one starts I’m unsure as I’m not sure whether we’ll have a French entitlement or not. We are covered by the s1 carte vitale until Jan 2016. We’re hoping that our gite will be up and running by then so we will be contributing to the French system and continue our right to health care here. I assume then that we’ll be able to get a French EHIC to cover travel elsewhere…
I have a UK EHIC. I was told by Newcastle that I would need to use it in the UK too now that I had my carte Vitale.
The extra advice they gave was making sure any walk in centre or A & E did not register me as a UK patient or I would be automatically be de registered in France.
William, is this what happened to you ? If so, when does the French one starts ?
If you look you’ll see that your ehic expires on the same date that your S1 does (assuming it changed when you entered the French health care system). I assume at the end of this period the UK liability for your health care ends…
Thanks Debra, you are a pearl ! :)
I am self employed so go via the RSI
Sounds great Steve. Under what regime are you now attached to your CPAM ? Did you join through an S1 form, as Debra suggests ? If this is the case, apparently now they refuse to give us one.
Thanks Debra, for your reply. Stupidly, I threw the British EHIC cards away after our arrival in France, well it sounded like doing the right thing at the time, with our carte vitale in hand...
So I thought I could apply for new ones, but I read on the website that we cannot use the form if we are no longer resident.... Do I hear the word Kafka here ?
When we got our S1 form at the beginning of the year from the uk we also recieved a form for the EHIC. Find out more info from www.nhs.uk/ehic tel:+44 191 279 0575. They will send you a card for yourself and dependent. It is recommended that if you travel overseas or even within the EU you take out travel assurance to cover for 'excess'. Hope this helps.
We always have EHIC cards, just ask CPAM. We used it once when one daughter had a wasp sting close to her eye that had to be treated. The receptionist in the emergency department of the hospital in Italy simply slashed it across a card reader and that was that. We had a notification about it here a couple of months later. So, yes it could be useful so do not take the chance of not having one.
I have never had a problem getting a EHIC card from local CPAM but have never had to use it .