If you don’t want (or are ineligible to qualify for)
healthcare protection from the country where you normally
live, your situation depends on the country where you
originally came from.
If you wish, you can register with a specific healthcare
provider from your country of origin (when offered),
but you will still pay and benefit from the local system.
You can find information (benefit packages and prices)
on the web.
In the EU, you can ask to come back to your original
country using the form E 112 (sickness, maternity) or
E 123 (work accident) that can you get from the health
office. You also can subscribe to a private mutual fund
to protect people abroad (you will find the information
in contacting any private insurance company).
All the hospitals will accept you for an emergency
even if you don’t have a Social Security number. You
can go to the emergency department, but as patients
are see by order of emergency, if you are not covered
in blood you should take a book.
Insurance number
In order to be eligible to the healthcare protection
you must have a ‘numéro de sécurité sociale’ (social
security number – e.g. 1 0569 110125 i.e. m/f mmyy
number).
When you work, your employer must
complete a declaration unique d’embauche and obtain
the number for you. The document must be sent
or faxed to the URSSAF, ‘Déclaration d’embauche’ department.
In parallel, your employer will have to ask to register
that document with your social security centre (he will
get information by calling 01.5.38.70.70). This center
will provide a temporary number, and later a definitive
one.
In order to benefit from health insurance, the social
security contributor must have made a minimum amount
of contributions from their salary or have worked a
minimum number of hours.
- If you have a regular income: You will make regular
payments towards health insurance which are deducted
monthly from your salary on a monthly basis. Your social
security contributor’s card will be automatically renewed.
- If you do not have a regular income: Once a year
you should send one or more payslips to your social
security office to prove that you have worked at least
120 hours over a 3 month period.
- If you have recently been registered: You will benefit
from a reduction in the cost of treatment during the
first 3 months. For the following 3 months, if you are
under 25, you must prove that you have worked 60 hours
or earned a wage at least equal to 60 times the hourly
SMIC (basic minimum wage) since starting work. You will
benefit from payments in the case of illness, pregnancy,
illness preventing you from working, accident at work
or occupational disease, disability or death.
You will still benefit of the insurance during 3 years
after you stop working for any time off.
If you don’t work, you will be eligible
to the insurance if you are a relative of the insured
person, married or equivalent, or living with the person
for more than 1 year.
Everyone else is protected by the Couverture Maladie
Universelle (universal healthcare protection) and
you can ask information to the social security centre
you are living next.
The general social security health insurance covers
4 out of 5 French for medical costs incurred due to
illness, pregnancy, disability and death. Through a
second plan it also covers for accidents at work and
occupational diseases.
You will get two different documents to testify your
insurance:
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