I had my first doctor visit yesterday, so now I am enough of an expert to talk about medical stuff in Switzerland.

Seriously though, when my husband officially put this Switzerland plan in motion in late 2020 one of the first curveballs we were thrown was the fact that he would be “terminated” as a US employee with his company and re-hired as a Europe employee. The big takeaway was that we would have to get medical insurance in Switzerland (not a surprise) and our kids would have to get their own insurance in the US (surprise!). My first question was - doesn’t Switzerland have universal healthcare? Because all of Europe is supposed to have National Healthcare Service like the UK, right? Well, no.

Disclaimer: I am a n00b here, I know barely anything about this country, its government, and how stuff works. This is all my own personal experience, not my advice, and your mileage may vary. All the cliches…

In Switzerland, it is apparently against the law for employers to provide health insurance for employees, and it is also not provided by the government. A quick Google search told me that everyone here has to get mandatory basic health insurance. There are lots of private companies who provide these policies, and if you apply they have to accept you, take your money, and give you a basic policy. You can adjust the amount of your premium somewhat by changing your deductible. Beyond that, if you want further amenities like eye care, dental, private hospital rooms, childcare, medical evacuation, emergency helicopter transport, better choice of care providers, etc., you buy a supplemental healthcare policy. It is optional and just covers more stuff. However as we have learned, supplemental insurance is for the young people.

We first worked with an insurance broker who was recommended to us by the company that coordinated all of our moving and apartment hunting. She gave us some quotes, and we filled out the applications. Our applications included everything - personal liability insurance, basic health, supplemental health (dental, eye, etc.). On the app, we checked the box for “if we don’t get it all then we don’t want any of it”. Then weeks ticked by, and we never heard back from the broker or the insurance company. I’m beginning to think that the idea of “keeping you in the loop” isn’t a thing with Swiss people, because the broker just was not responsive when I would email to check in. In fact, her only response to me was - you’ll know something when you get something in the mail from the insurance company. Well, around the time we moved into our new apartment, we got the rejection letter for all of the health insurance. Cass consulted with his co-workers and their suggestions were to apply for basic only and then try several companies for the supplemental. (But really they seemed to politely imply that perhaps we are unlikely to get approved for supplemental coverage because of our ages.)

I decided that I was done with the broker, and so I did the application myself on the website of the insurance company we picked. We had an answer within a week. So now we each have a mandatory basic health insurance policy, and it is really quite comprehensive. I’m sure if we stay here long enough we will find out its shortcomings, but for now it’s all we need. Ours has a deductible of 1500CHF and the costs are Cass 398CHF and me 425CHF per month. Interestingly enough, that’s roughly what our children are paying for their new healthcare policies through the healthcare exchange and /or their universities.

We both take daily medications, and about now is when we were going to run out of them so we had to figure out where to go to get them refilled. Again, the co-workers suggested several of the large clinic-type places to make it easier to get treatment. I guess getting in with a doctor in private practice is a bit tricky. Last week Cass had his appointment, and yesterday I had mine. I just showed up at the appointment time, showed them my insurance paper (we don’t have our cards yet), and sat in the waiting room. The doctor called me and showed me into his office. He sat at his desk and I sat in a chair in front. He never took a temp or a blood pressure measurement, he just asked what I needed. It was like I was at my financial advisor or my banker’s office. I said I need these 2 drugs refilled, and he started to look up the equivalent medications. After that, we went to the front desk and they handed me 6 months’ worth of pills and sent me on my way. No payment, no hassle. It was very similar to the one time in London that I got strep throat and had to go to A&E for some antibiotics.

Now I have 2 boxes of 100 pills each in blister packs. Very convenient, all done in one stop. The other photo is a voucher we got when we registered at the Kreisbüro - apparently we are within X km (I don’t know the actual distance) of a nuclear power plant so the government gives you vouchers for iodine pills to keep on hand. I need to go turn it in and get our pills. You know, in case of nuclear meltdown.