Healthcare in Luxembourg: finding a doctor and insurance coverage
Health care in Luxembourg is available to everyone regardless of nationality. However, this system has some special features.
Healthcare is one of the key issues that will sooner or later concern everyone. And although medical treatment is available to everyone in Luxembourg, it is not always easy to get it. We talked to our readers and collected some interesting stories.
How to make an appointment
- The Doctena.lu service is the easiest way to register. This is an online platform where you can sort the specialists according to the language they speak and choose the most suitable time slot for you.
- Sometimes there is information about a doctor on the website, but no appointment. But at least you can see the doctor. The appointment is usually a few days in advance. For a dentist, it can take several weeks.
- Also, all these ways don't always work. For example, I have a special case, so regular doctors would not be able to help me, but I am going to talk about that later.
How health insurance works
- The state covers a lot of expenses, but not everything. For example, I got depressed in the winter. It wasn't depression, but I didn't have the energy to do anything. I made an appointment with a Doctena therapist. He examined me and sent me for a blood test. I paid 49 euros for the appointment on the spot. When I got home, I sent the check to CNS and they refunded me 80%. By the way, they did not charge me anything for the analysis itself because it was a referral.
In the end, it turned out that my vitamin D was low, they prescribed an increased dosage, I took it, and now I feel better.
- You are right that insurance does not cover, it reimburses. So you have to pay the full amount at the appointment and then you have to take care of it. By the way, if the check is more than 100 Euros, you can come to CNS in person and ask for a refund on the spot.
Just remember that you will not get the money. They will give you a check that you can take to the post office to get cash. I'm not sure if this works at every post office, I just have one near my house that does financial transactions.
How to get your eyesight tested in Luxembourg
- I've already been to the ophthalmologist twice. My vision has gotten worse again, so I'm going to see him again soon.
I had a standard appointment through Doctena. And the appointment with the ophthalmologist is very far in advance, it can be up to a couple of months. The procedure itself is very simple. There's an assistant who does the initial examination. I don't know what he does with the equipment. Probably he looks at the fundus of the eye.
Then the doctor himself. He checks the visual acuity, writes a prescription for glasses if you need them, and generally discusses the situation. He has already told me that we need to stop the loss of vision so that we can do an operation. But because my eyesight continues to deteriorate, that hasn't happened yet.
I have to go to an optician with a prescription, pay for it, and then CNS will reimburse me. I also have private insurance, so I may be confused here. Together they covered almost the entire check.
So we bought a pair of glasses for my husband for 750 Euros. Or was it mine? I don't remember. Probably for my husband, because he has some special ones)))
How to get dental treatment
- Pretty much the same as everything else. I go to the dentist every six months for a cleaning. Last time I also had to have a tooth repaired. It ended up costing about 200 euros.
I paid and went to CNS. The office closest to me has days when you can come in without an appointment, on a first-come, first-served basis. I was lucky because no one was in the office, so I got my check quickly.
- In my case, it wasn't so easy. My wife had a toothache, she almost climbed up the wall in pain. And I really thought there was an emergency room for that.
But no! You have to wait for the offices to open or go to the hospital. Only there the dentist is available from about 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
In general, Luxembourg has problems with public clinics, there are more private ones. We ended up going to a private clinic to have my wife's tooth fixed. We paid about 450 euros. 250 has already been reimbursed and another check is pending with the CNS.
How to treat unique cases
- Oh, that's my kind of thing! If you can go to a therapist for more or less understandable illnesses, there are some things for which you need specialized help. I've had a problem with dizziness for a long time. After I moved, it became especially intense. There were moments when I couldn't even stand. I was just given the runaround at a regular clinic. Fortunately, the therapist referred me to a specialized clinic.
It is a private clinic that deals with my kind of problems. I went there and talked to the doctor. He is a very cool guy, and it turns out that his office is almost the only one in Europe with the equipment I need.
We did a series of tests with different devices. At one point I had two liquids poured into my ear, one that was cold and one that was warm. First in the right ear, then in the left ear. When the liquid is poured in, you're supposed to feel dizzy. One ear did, and the other didn't. That was the sign of the problem.
I was excited that I would be cured soon, but no. The doctor explained to me that this field of medicine is like alchemy. There is a problem, it is known, but everything is so little studied that the treatment for my specific case has not yet been invented.
As a result, I now have a lot of exercises to train my vestibular apparatus. I'm doing them for now.
I have to say it is VERY expensive out there(( Luckily my company provides insurance that covers all the costs!
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