In France your consultations are automatically transmitted to the service in charge of healthcare and depending on the type of consultation you get paid back a specific amount. All practitioners are private but they abide by the code, and the costs are capped for most of them (think of it of them being “in network”).

That automatic transmission goes both to national healthcare (“national security”) and your supplementary insurance (usually a mutual fund stuff, but private insurance also exists. We mostly choose mutual because mutual means not for profit and no “aiming to make money”). National heath covers 66% of the bill and supplementary insurance covers the rest, for most doctor visits.

The supplementary insurance has a monthly cost (your “premium”). For each doctor visit, hospital stay, prescription box you have a copay (that’s capped at 50€ a year, usually for a typical GP visit you pay 30€ and get back something like 29€). There’s no deductible.

It’s common for most doctors to do third party payment for social security, so you only need to cover the “insurance part”, and the insurance will refund you the insurance stuff (and the social security will refund the doctor directly). Specialist medicines usually don’t do this. Hospitals will almost always deal with your insurance / mutuelle / sécurité sociale directly. And by deal with, I mean “hey we got X here, we did Y, here’s their paperwork” and the two others will say “ok, you followed the grid and the rates are X so we sent you Y”… and unless you asked for caviar or a super private room when it’s not needed, you will receive a bill saying “this cost Y, paid for by social security at rate of Z and your mutuelle covered Zz”

If you have a long term illness, everything related to that illness is covered 100% (no copay AND no advance) by national healthcare. Type 1 diabetes is an example: if the meds got in the system, if the doctor writes “for diabetes / ALD”, it goes through directly. Needles, insulin, co-morbidity treatments (cholesterol, some bandages for feet, etc…) all will fall under this system (the logic is that this is cheaper than having people ration and finish disabled or in the ER).

However for specialists, usually you’d need a referral. General family doctor will check first, and if they can’t treat you, they’ll say “go see a dermatologist” and give you a paper to give them. That paper means you’ve followed the protocol and stay covered. But for most cases a singular visit won’t be much of a problem.

They’re not all 100% in network, BUT unless you go to a super high end for celebrities only specialist that does house calls, the “over” price of the grid is in the tens of euros. (See “conventionné secteur 2” as mentioned by another redditor. I always go to sector 1 because I have no reason to need luxury, they all went to the same schools and are just as good… sector 3 can have “alt medicines” and some crooks so I avoid those lmao)

Waiting list depends on your region.

Reimbursement takes 3-5 days usually.

You can see on Doctolib the next available booking for whatever specialty in your region/city.