Whether you need a cardiologist, a rheumatologist, a dermatologist, a physiotherapist or any other find of medical specialist, the system for getting an appointment in France might be different from what you are used to.
If you are living in France then your one-stop-shop for most of your medical needs will be your médecin généraliste (your GP or family doctor). If you are registered in the French health system you will need to register with a GP as your médecin traitant (your regular doctor), although this doesn’t prevent you from switching to another GP, or just seeing a different doctor if your regular one is not available.
For most people it’s a good idea to have a regular doctor who gets to know you and your health issues, but it’s useful to be able to make an appointment elsewhere if your regular doctor is busy or away on holiday.
As well as a médecin généraliste, most women in France will have a gynaecologist (gynécologue) who deals with routine matters like cervical/pap smears or contraception.
And if you have children, they will likely have a pédiatre (paediatrician), although some people use a généraliste for children’s healthcare.
And if you are lucky, then that’s all you will ever need.
If, however, you are unlucky and develop more serious medical problems, then you may need a specialist.
How to book an appointment
The most common path to a specialist is if you visit your GP and they advise you that you should see a specialist, but it’s not necessary to do this first; you can book the appointment directly if you prefer.
If the referral comes from your GP, they will likely tell you the type of specialist you need, and may even give you recommendations for practitioners in your area.
However, it’s still up to you to book the appointment directly with the specialist, either by calling their cabinet (office) or online.
If your doctor didn’t give you recommendations, or if the people they recommend have no spare appointments, you will have to do the work yourself of hunting down a relevant specialist in your area.
The easiest way to do this is via the Doctolib app, which allows you to search by specialism and by area (and you can also filter English-speaking doctors).
READ ALSO: How to use: French medical website Doctolib
However, not all doctors are registered on Doctolib, so if the app doesn’t show a relevant specialist in your area, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t any, it just means that you will have to find them the old-fashioned way (personal recommendations, internet searches, etc.).
Specialist appointments work the same way as GPs – you pay them up front, and then if you are registered in the French health system, they swipe your carte vitale and a portion of the fee is reimbursed to you.
If you need any follow-up appointments, you can also book them directly with the specialist.
How easy is it to find a specialist?
This really depends on where you live – generally, the big cities it’s not too hard, but in smaller towns or rural areas it can be difficult, especially if you live in a desert médicale (area with a shortage of doctors).
In these areas, it may be hard to find specialists, and those that you do may be booked up for weeks or months in advance, leading to a long wait.
The advantage of arranging the appointment yourself is that you can decide whether you would prefer to wait longer for someone nearby or travel to the nearest city to get a quicker appointment.
A study for the Jean Jaurès Foundation found that 70 percent of people are able to get a specialist appointment within seven days (and eight percent within 48 hours), but as ever those figures hide wide regional variations.
It also depends on the type of specialist you need – cardiologists have the longest waiting times (42 days on average), with dermatologists the second longest (32 days).
The media site France Info has put together a helpful calculator where you can enter your département and find average waiting times for each type of specialist.
These wait times refer only to appointments in the community, not to people who are receiving hospital care.
How much does it cost?
There are government-set rates for specialist appointments, and they are usually slightly more expensive than the standard GP fee of €30.
The exact price depends on the type of specialist you are seeing, but ranges from €35 (gynaecologist) to €52 (psychiatrist or neurologist), with higher rates for complex hospital-based consultations – you can find the full list of fees here.
As with a GP appointment, a portion of the cost is reimbursed via the carte vitale – usually this is 70 percent of the total cost, but some groups get 100 percent reimbursement, including women in the later stages of pregnancy or victims of terror attacks.
As with GPs, specialists can be either registered as Sector 1 or Sector 2 – Sector 2 doctors can charge more than the government-set rates, and the reimbursement via the carte vitale only covers the portion of the standard rate, although if you have a mutuelle, it may pay the rest of the cost, depending on the policy.
French vocab
GP/ family doctor – Médecin généraliste
Paediatrician – Pédiatre
Cardiologist – Cardiologue
Dermatologist – Dermatologue
Psychiatrist – Psychiatre
Neurologist – Neurologue
Gynaecologist – Gynécologue
Gastroenterologist – Gastro-entérologue
Endocrinologist – Endocrinologue
Geriatric specialist – Gériatre
Rheumatologist – Rhumatologue
Physiotherapist – Kinésithérapeute (often shortened to kiné)
Midwife – Sage-femme
An online appointment (useful if the nearest specialist is a long way away) -Téléconsultation
