I was in hospital last year for about 6 weeks and am now recovered. I am retired and have an S1 and am a member of CPAM and presented my card as usual at the time, but have always paid the difference in cash. A portion of this has always normally been refunded but since I started paying the hospital bills, no refunds have appoeared. Is this a feature of Brexit/covid or is this something I have to chase ? My last bill was paid on the 14th December. Or have I totally misunderstood the way it all works ?
Glad to hear youāre on the mend John.
What was the bill for that you paid?
There have been no changes AFAIK that have been influenced by Brexit in this regard. If your bill was was for (so called) hotel services, they have always been payable by the patient - French or English, but are usually covered by a mutuelle. (if you have one)
Just found itā¦ forfait journalier hospitalier - daily charge. This cost is not covered by the caisse and if the consultant charges more than the secteur 1 conventionĆ©e, you might expect to pay more (dĆ©passements dāhonoraires) for that as well.
And mutuelles donāt cover everythingā¦for example if you had a private room and this is not part of your mutuelle then you will have to pay that, or a TV. Or osteopathy, loads of things really!
Always good to check the detail of the bill to ascertain the nature of the charges. When I was in the Cancerologie unit at Poitiers CHU they started to send me bills relating to around 50 Euro per day for electing to have a single room. We pointed out that ALL the rooms in the Cancerologie unit are single rooms as an infection prevention measure, and that the patient has no choice in the matter. After some persistence, and a most helpful intervention from āCancer Support Franceā, the charges were cancelled.
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Hi - thanks for the replies. The bills (12 in all!!) were for a variety of āservicesā and radiologic exams. I had a single room, but this was not my choice - it was decided by the hospital. The charges for the specialists were reasonable - averaged around ā¬9 which I payed without grumbling. But the room wasnāt covered by the S1 AFAIK so Iām saddled with a ā¬1300 bill, which I can pay but would like to have some sort of a refund for the others You might ask why I donāt have a Mutuelle but for the last ten years my Pharmacie bill was negligible - not worth the ā¬100 my OH and I were quoted. Even the present bills mean Iād still be out of pocket if Iād had a Mutuelle. Iāve been sent other CPAM billa but theyāll have to waitā¦
Sorry - I meant that was ā¬100 per monthā¦ still very high.
For the first 30 days you have to pay 30% of the frais hospitalier, after 30 days you are 100% reimbursed. But you also have to pay a daily forfait journalier of 20ā¬, so that alone would be 840ā¬ā¦
Like you I donāt find a mutuelle worth having. So just have hospital cover which is much more affordable. If you think your future may include more long stays in hospital then perhaps worth considering?
If you are being billed an extra amount for a single room which you did not ask for, then I would strongly recommend that you do not pay that part of the bill. If you did not sign a form asking for a single room, and acknowledging the additional fee to be paid for it, then you should not have to pay for it.
Challenging the bill, politely but insistently, will invariably result in that part of the charge being dropped. Often the Admin part of the hospital set-up just send out these bills automatically in the knowledge that many patients just forward it to their mutuelle for payment.
If you were placed in a single room for clinical reasons, or simply because no shared rooms were available, then you should not have to pay a surcharge as though you had requested it.
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