Health insurance for chronic illness in Paris?

As a UK citizen you qualify to take advantage of the universal healthcare system that exists in France - known as Sécurité Sociale.  This public system is rated the best in the world by the WHO (World Health Organisation), and is certainly something you should take advantage of.

Under what circumstances are you moving to France - retirement, employement, etc...If it's the former you'll need to complete an E121 form to access healthcare, if it's the latter a certain percentage of your income will be docked accordingly.

As a British expat, it makes the most sense to take out the CMU scheme, which comes with high-premiums attached, but which covers a lot. I'm not sure if it covers monthly blood tests, but have a look at the CMU site (you may need to use Google Translate to turn it into English) and see what it says.

Regardless though, bring enough of your regular medication to last you a few months in France while you figure out the best way to obtain it.

Hello EL. I'm UK resident too and in a similar position. I have a holiday home in rural France and was hoping to spend more time there. I'm hitting a brick wall trying to GET the blood tests done, even though France and UK come under the reciprocity health-care arrangements for EU..accessing that care is proving tricky! Did you have any luck getting anywhere with this? The responses I've had from my consultant in UK have been "the french should be able to sort it". The french GP says "we need a european blood test request" - nobody seems to have a clue what that is, but I think it means that they don't understand the british paperwork that I have.. Meanwhile, I'm thrashing around trying to figure who does the tests, who gets the results, who analyses them, etc. etc? Hoping that we can get our heads together and solve this one! RA puts enough barriers up in our lives without bureaucracy adding to them. Happy to work with you to find out how we continue to lead the lives we want to lead! Regards MrsHouseMouse ps. sorry if this ends up as the second post I make, but I only just figured out the log-in system!

Elliot Imogen posted this question July 11 2011: i am moving from the UK to Paris for 4 months and i have rheumatoid Arthritis and the medicine i have to take every week means i need a blood test every month to check my blood. Should i take out private medicial care for this? if so what would you recommend? can i go to a local gp and have the test? how can i obtain my regular medication? any help would be grateful appreciated. I have the exact same question (although I am USA) and would like to contact this person to find out how it worked out