Hi
I am planning to retire to cotes de armor in September,My wife and I have already bought a house and pay habitation tax etc , what I would like to know is who do I need to see to register for a doctor ,I know about registering for s1 with NHS but I dont know who to see in france .My wife and I are both on medication so we will need to register for prescriptions as we will only have a two months supply brought with us from uk.
Any help would be appreciated thank you
David Mackintosh
Hi David,
We moved to the Cotes-d’Armor from the UK 8 years ago - and love living here.
We just went along to our nearest doctor (there is only one in the village) and asked. It was no problem at all - and he has turned out to be the best family doctor we’ve ever had.
Just visit the local surgery and register. If you need it, you might find a doctor who will speak English.
You cannot register with a doctor until you have entered the French health system. You can however visit your local doctor before that.
As retired people (inactifs) you can’t apply to join the french health service until you have been resident for 3 months. And then it will take a bit longer to actually get your attestation that you have been accepted and carte vitale. So up to then you will have to pay for your medicines, but if you ask for feuille de soins and receipts you will be able to claim back costs from date you are accepted.
So at day one you merely need to ask a GP (MT médecin traitant) to take you on to their list, and then they can be registered as your MT later on. It is cheaper once they are formally registered as your doctor. But you can go to any surgery you like. Some may not be taking new patients, but generally there’s not a problem.
Before you leave the UK get a copy of your medical records (which will probably cost £25 or so for a data access request) as that should give the GP confidence to prescribe your drugs without instruction from a french specialist consultant.
And depending on what type of consultant you normally see and how often do talk to GP about giving your a referral and start booking an appointment in good time. Some have a long waiting list for new patients. In France it is often down to the patient to book appointments and so on. I’ve heard that sometimes GPs will get involved, but I guess that might be if you don’t seem capable of doing it yourself. I personally prefer to organise it myself.
Whoops! This reply is getting a bit long! Enough already.
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Thank you for all your replies it puts my mind at rest now ,hopefully by August or September I’ll be allowed to travel and the ferries will be up and running again .
Cheers David Mackintosh
Also consider complimentary health insurance which IIRC you can put in place whilst you are still a UK resident. Contact @fabien by clicking on the link for further help in this respect. It’s a complicated subject so proper advice is vital. There are other mandatory insurances to consider too which you already have a property I am sure you are cognisant of.
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