Switzerland | How Much I Paid For Healthcare | Swiss Healthcare System

hey guys welcome back to how to Switzerland Sarah here today and in today's video I am talking about health care in Switzerland once again so I made a video actually a few months ago now where I talked about my experience getting very sick here in Switzerland and I ended up having to go to the doctor's office three separate times you know over the course of a week or so to get everything sorted out and at the end of that video I said as soon as the bill arrives I will break it down for you guys and explain how much everything costs etc etc and I made that video thinking that the bill is going to arrive like in my mail any day now and in fact that was not the case that all the bill took over three months to arrive and this is really really strange this was like I don't know really strange to me I feel like in the u.s. they're very quick to bill you I definitely have never waited three and a half months for a bill before and I did some research online and it seems like there were quite a few foreigners like myself living here in Switzerland that had the same experience some people said it took up to six months to get a bill after going to the doctor so I guess that's something to keep in mind as well because I did not pay anything for all of that treatment I just showed my health insurance card and I left after all three appointments not spending anything and I didn't get charged anything until about three and a half months later so I have the bill right here I suppose we will just talk about it so Matias and I have our health insurance through a company called Concordia here in Switzerland and we pay together 660 Swiss francs per month for health insurance that is our health insurance premium so it's you know a little over 300 bucks per person in Switzerland they don't really have family health insurance plans the way that you have in the US where you can kind of have a husband and wife and kids on the same policy everybody is individually insured including children now it depends what country you are watching this from but paying six hundred and sixty bucks per month for a health insurance premium may sound like a lot or it may sound like a good deal that is all extremely relative but for Switzerland this is actually relatively low and the and were able to keep our premiums lower is because we did choose the highest legally allowed deductible so obviously if you don't know what acceptable is that is the amount that you need to pay towards your health care costs in a given year and in Switzerland these deductible amounts are set by the federal government with the minimum deductible being 300 Swiss francs and the absolute maximum deductible allowed by law being two and a half thousand Swiss francs per year so that is what we elected for which is typically smart if you have some savings like we do and if you are in good health so since we are young and in pretty good health we opted for the lowest monthly premium or monthly you know cost possible but of course we have this higher deductible which means that we do pay more out-of-pocket per year on the health insurance costs themselves if we have them and considering over the past 10 years I have gone to the doctor probably less than five times this seems like the best plan but this year we are actually going to be using our health insurance so I did a whole video about my experience going to the doctor but basically in summary I got very sick I went to the doctor on three separate occasions over the course of a week or so I had some blood tests I had some ear cleaning done I got looked at by a few doctors and I got some over-the-counter medicine so all extremely normal things and the cost for all of this we got an itemized bill which matthias will come in in a little bit and kind of go over it with you guys but the cost for all of these things was three hundred and seventy-six swiss francs and five cents so we're talking almost four hundred US dollars to go to the doctor three times and as I said our annual deductible is two thousand five hundred dollars which we have not spent any money towards so far so we have to pay the entire bill here the entire three hundred and seventy six Swiss francs I have to say the bill is very simple I really appreciate the clarity and transparency nc that is provided here but basically it just says here that we have three categories we have doctor labor and medication and for doctors I spent 276 for labor I spent 31 and for medication I spent 68 and then it says right here that my yarn is a franchise it I don't know how to say that annual deductible is 2500 and the bedight spit salt the franchise said that doesn't sound like a german word to me how do you say that franchise deductible is this 376 so i guess it will add that all up there which is kind of nice you can see very clearly how much you have left towards your deductible and then right here it talks about the selves you guys the pronunciation challenge is real here selves behold so that's the i guess you could call it coinsurance so after you pay the deductible of 2500 in switzerland you have to pay 10% of everything over the 2500 or over your deductible if it's $300 it's also fine to say your deductible is 300 or 2500 doesn't matter you have to pay that and then you have to pay 10% of all your costs over that but the maximum is 700 and this is set by the federal government as well that is the maximum that insurance companies are allowed to offer so i haven't spent any of that yet because i haven't met my deductible so with this bill and all my health insurance paid it to the doctor's office they must have an agreement some companies don't do that maybe since we have this HMO policy where we're required to go to a specific doctor we cannot choose our doctor with the low-cost plan that we chose they paid them and then the insurance company sees that I didn't pay my deductible yet didn't meet my deductible yet so they're billing me for the full amount which we already paid one interesting thing about medical costs in Switzerland out is that all maternity costs are covered you do not need to meet your deductible for the year in order for the insurance to start covering maternity cost so basically everything having to do with pregnancy is it called prenatal postnatal everything is covered by the mandatory health insurance this is you know a federal regulation so no matter what company you are with they have to cover maternity costs before your deductible so you don't have to spend your 300 or your 2500 before it kicks in if it's related to maternity but anyways let's have Matias come in because we got this really long itemized bill with very small fonts all in German so I thought he could help me out with this and just explain what some of these basic costs having to do with going to the doctor when you are sick what what do they cost hello actually before you jump into that I have one question if I pronounce this correctly how do you pronounce this word Frosch ISA wrong she is there yeah that sounds like French I believe it is is that something that's probably Swiss German no but do you say that in Germany are there any Germans watching that because that really sounds like Swiss no like Swiss thing oh yeah I'm sure yeah Allison you're do yah yah yah yah yah a lot to get me every time I explained explained everything yeah I explained oh I hope you guys understand I'm still figuring this out why is health insurance so confusing but I have to say it's less continue that's confusing here than anywhere else that that I've lived huh so let's go into some of these costs yeah so when I went to the doctor the whole bill got sent to the to the health insurance company and now we received actually a copy of the itemized bill so I really love the transparency here that's absolutely fantastic I did don't just see this coming in the mail and we have to pay you almost $400 but we see on what it was spent I agree that's really good I think in the States I'm not a hundred percent sure but I'm pretty sure you have to ask to get what you have to us does I've heard horror stories about people asking for an itemized bill and it will say like blanket like that just gonna go over a few lines what I thought was very interesting so here on her first visit to the doctor she needed some ibuprofen that cost seven dollars seven Swiss francs and 20 cents for how many 20/20 yeah for twenty there were 400 milligrams and she also got DeRosa Dean spray that cost $19 Swiss francs and 70 cents and sorry and both of those are over-the-counter you can get without a prescription I didn't eat good also Dean as well yeah those are yeah go to the pharmacy and yeah just pick them up yeah they're not prescription and also here this was very interesting on the x-ray on the second visit the first five minutes of consultation costed us 16 Swiss francs and 56 cents I always want to say dollars bucks or dollars in little Swiss francs respects okay here come on Swiss ease so I see SEC should call it that yeah okay in corporate finance they call it was Frank's Swissy okay so also on the second visit yeah Sarah had to give blood it's just like a little prick and then they had to look at the blood how she's doing or like what was wrong and that costs it very impressed for Swiss francs and 38 cents are you support that and this is the real cost it's like yeah double setback assistant just so next thing is oh that was the most expensive medication she got that was the Cortina saw no spray and that actually worked that helped you the most out of everything and I was 41 Swiss francs and 26 but again I think you can get that at a pharmacy probably I'm probably calls the same yeah it cost the same because the same but if I can say one thing as well I don't like going to the doctor obviously and I try to avoid it the American and me like you know I feel like growing up you don't just like go every time you don't feel good because it's so expensive and it was the same in Switzerland like I do not just go to the doctor every time I don't feel good like this was relatively severe and we even did try to just because I read online you can often just if you kind of don't feel well go to the pharmacy and they'll kind of consult with you a little bit and they can give you some of this which if they would have and we tried that we went there but they were like we don't know if it's viral bacterial you might need a blood test etc but if we could have just gotten these medications from then this would have saved us a lot of it was urgent and so I'm really happy that we've got some really good help here yeah they were all very professional we're very nice people so another line here on the last day she had to go to was was a small into Suho like a small small visit it says client inter sue home small visit through the the doctor costs 17-6 francs and 58 cents and also afterwards that's very you that's very interesting instructions from the doctor calls 16 Swiss francs and 55 cents it's so broken down there's also that day she our doctor her doctor recommended that she will get her ears cleaned out and that actually was zero Swiss francs which is weird because it's quite long with everything the Michaud set up and everything yeah I even helped you know I printed out some things here it was some no old and it does say I did read no Switzerland has the best health care system in Europe oh really it's currently ranked number one according to the 2018 euro health consumer index however the Swiss health system is one of the costliest in the world and unlike European countries health care in Switzerland isn't charged via Social Security payments that's true and also it says unlike other European countries the Swiss health care system is not taxed based or financed by employers paid for by the individual through contributions into Swiss health insurance schemes and one more thing the average adult pays 447 in premiums so we like I said us paying 664 - is actually very low so yes it is expensive and also to go to the doctor it is expensive I've heard about people obviously in like Japan and stuff like going and it's like cheery-bye or whatever so you definitely I have to say it is expensive enough that you definitely probably think twice before you go to the doctor which isn't the best thing but I guess if you have a lower deductible it all depends the good thing is it is actually affordable for Swiss people thank you Swiss like salaries yes it is not ages it is fine especially like one years if when you start sick that you were and we only had to pay 372 Swiss francs I think that's a good price so she's healthy again so that's that's fantastic yeah for some so I don't know how much I would add that would that would be interesting like how much with that this whole ordeal cause in America I really don't know I really don't know won't be very interesting you see but yeah I'm happy that through this whole experience we're kind of learning how our insurance works how the healthcare system works we learned a lot it was a big learning experience which I'm definitely grateful for and for me the strangest thing is just like coming from the US where most people if they're lucky enough if they're privileged enough they get insurance through work so people don't have as much of like a relationship with health insurance because it might be taken out of their paycheck and things like this whereas here you really like every single person has to pay it every month like they get the bill they pay it their employer is not painted I also heard that the government actually subsidizes also health insurance where some people can't afford it which is amazing so they have also that's the same access to to care which is very phenomenal so yeah let us know your thoughts down below is this a lot for some doctor's visits or not how much would this kind of thing cost in your country we love to hear your experience down below also other people in Switzerland let us know what you pay for your average doctor visit this may be more expensive because we live in Zurich also could be the case so that's it for today guys and I hope you enjoyed this video if it was helpful leave it a thumbs up and I will talk to you soon bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: How To Switzerland

Views: 36,151

Rating: 4.9255428 out of 5

Keywords: switzerland, swiss, how to, life in switzerland, move to switzerland, moving to switzerland, sarah nourse, sarah nurse, sara nourse, swiss life

Id: Jss-y2N-xKo

Length: 16min 7sec (967 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 11 2019