Our Blog - French Carte Vitale

Initial Submission

The Carte Vitale is the french health "insurance" card for the national healthcare system. For people who have one, they use it at Doctors and Pharmacies. After three months of living in France in a “stable and regular basis” and staying for at least 183 days per year, you are eligible for PUMa (Protection Universelle Maladie, i.e Universal Health Protection). If you are not already paying into the system (via work, for example), the French system sends you a bill, taking into account exemption amounts and various types of income for the "cotisation" fee. The Carte Vitale is the card that you then use at the doctors offices, hospitals, and pharmacies. This then covers between 60% and 70% of the bill, and the rest is either just paid by you, or you purchase a l’Assurance Complémentaire Santé, which is a top-up insurance.

We have finally gotten around to applying for the Carte Vitale, even though we have been eligible for a couple of years. I wanted to document our process for others that may want to read this later. As always, I caveat this blog with "this is OUR experience" ... your experience may be different.

We did a bit of research online first, as there are quite a few websites that talk about how to go about applying for the carte vitale. Once we got our various documents ready, we decided to go directly to the CPAM (Caisse primaire d'assurance maladie) office to ask a few questions. We stood in line and after about 10 minutes, we spoke with a very nice gentleman, who spoke slowly and clearly (YEAH!!! we understood him!). I've documented our questions and answers here, just in case you care (note that we asked them in French and got answers in French).

1. Question: The form, there is a French form and an English form ...does it matter which we use? Does one get processed faster/easier/better? Answer: both are the same, whichever one we want to fill out.
2. Question: We do not yet have a French social security number. Will we get one as part of this process? (Note: we thought we knew the answer to this already but wanted to confirm, and yes, it was what we thought). Answer: Yes, if you don't enter a social security number, the first part of the process is to get you one. You should receive a "temporary" number within 2 months. But that doesn't give you access to the Carte Vitale .. you have to wait for a permanent one to be sent, which could take 6 months as it gets processed through Paris.
3. Question: Do you need both a copy of the passport and a copy of our Carte de Sejour? Answer: No, if you have been here long enough to have a Carte de Sejour, then they just need a copy of that. If we would have applied back 3 months after our arrival, then a copy of the passport would have been required.
4. Question: Our documents (birth certificates, marriage license, etc) are the originals, with the seal. Do we have to send those in, as these are our only originals. What is required to send? Answer: They actually do not want you to send in your originals, just a photocopy is fine.
5. Question: Do they have to be translated? Answer: Not as long as they are in English. English or French are acceptable, but if it was in some other language (German, Italian, Chinese .... ), then they would need a translation.
6. Question: Proof of residency ... for Tom, we have the home phone/internet bills (3 months of them), and for Susan, we have 2 attestations from the Electric company showing we have service (2018 and 2019). Is that good? Answer: Yes and No. For Tom, that works fine. For Susan, no, that doesn't work (even though that *is* acceptable for the Carte de Sejour). But he also gave us an easy workaround ... Tom just has to write an Attestation d'hébergement stating that Susan lives at the same address and sign it. Whew!
7. Question: Do we mail the dossier in? Answer: No, there is a "boite aux lettres" outside and you just drop the dossier (in an envelope, of course) into that box.

So it sounds fairly cut-and-dried, in fact. We need to make a couple copies at a copy-shop (a document is too big for us to scan/print at home), fill out the form, and then put it all in an envelope to drop back off. Then it will just be a waiting game. We will keep our private insurance until we get the actual little green card in our hot little hands! I'll post update this blog as things progress so that we will have a full "history" of how it worked for us.

First Update - April 22nd

So no update for a couple months (which we expected) and then today we received 3 letters (2 for Susan, 1 for Tom). Tom's letter said that they were unable to process his dossier because his identity card was missing. We checked the copy of the dossier that we kept and, sure enough, it was in there. So we printed his Carte de Sejour and passport and got it ready to mail back. Letter #1 for Susan said "congratulations, here is your temporary number, you have health coverage starting March 30th" .. YEAH! So if I go to the doctor now, I can pay upfront and then send the forms in (like with the private insurance that we have) and will get a reimbursement of approximately 70% of it (there are exceptions but this would be the general reimbursement). I have to wait for the permanent number to be able to get the actual little green card, and also to create our account on their website. The second letter said that they needed another document, this time a copy of our banking information, which we had also provided. However, this time it said that they needed my spouses bank RIB (which we have a joint account) and that it seems like it needed to be signed by both of us. Okay, printed, signed, into an envelope and ready to mail as well. So now we are still waiting for Tom's temporary number and then both permanent numbers. Just another little bit of progress!

Second Update - July 13th

Tom skipped the temporary number phase and went straight to a permanent number. Tom got his permanent number along with the information to create his online account and to send in the picture for his actual card. We weren't able to initially get the login creation to work, so he sent in the request for his actual card the old fashioned way ... using La Poste. We got the confirmation that it was received today. We have since been able to create his account online and so we are now just waiting for his actual card to be made and sent.

Today we also got Susan's permanent number (YEAH!!) and we were able to request a temporary code (password) to create the account online. That gets sent through the normal mail and should get here in a week or so. With that, I can create my online account and then I will try to submit the request for my actual card. So at this point, we are both covered by the French system and are just really waiting for the actual cards. Next step ... we have to do our investigation on the top-up insurance. Oh Joy!