In March myself and my partner were in Paris, but unfortunately he fell ill with a mystery virus and spent a day at Pitie Salpetriere Hopital. When we got home to Australia the next month we had been billed for his tests at the hospital, which I promptly sent to my travel insurance company. The insurance company paid us by cheque, and I have spent the last 4 months trying to find out how to pay the hospital from here. I recently had a response from the hospital to say i had to contact Tresorerie Generale De l%26#39;Assistance Publique, Hopitaux De Paris - but I don%26#39;t speak French and they have given me a phone number.
Does anyone know if the Tresorerie has an email address? At least I can translate using babelfish online my question into french - I just want to know how to pay the darn bill!
PLEASE HELP!
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I am a bit confused. You have a bill. You send them payment. Is there a problem? Go to your bank and have a money draft in euros drawn up,, and send it to the address on the bill. I must be missing a link here somehow, is there no address on the bill?
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PS ,, isn%26#39;t it nice that they treated your friend with no up front payment, I have a feeling that wouldn%26#39;t happen in many countries!! How did the whole experience go? Did your friend recover quickly?
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Joan is right. The bill you received should have the address on it. Your bank should be able to issue a Euro check for the amount owed.
Most of the Tresor%26#39;s do have email addresses. Just do a web search on the name and address they gave you or post it here and we can try to get it for you.
You could also try to fax them the question. Sometimes you can find fax numbers more easily than email addresses.
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Trésorerie Générale de l%26#39;Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris
3, avenue Victoria
75192 PARIS CEDEX 04
Phone : +33 1 4027 1960
Fax : +33 1 4027 3931
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Voila ! There you go. Now, you can fax them the question if you don%26#39;t feel comfortable enough to call them.
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joan1 wrote: %26lt;%26lt;PS ,, isn%26#39;t it nice that they treated your friend with no up front payment, I have a feeling that wouldn%26#39;t happen in many countries!! %26gt;%26gt;
I%26#39;m having a difficult time seeing what%26#39;s so especially unique about this.
In the U.S., any person who goes to a hospital emergency room, with or without insurance, also gets treated without payment up front. It%26#39;s a requirement of U.S. law that hospitals provide emergency care first, ask for payment later. And those who can%26#39;t pay get the emergency care free.
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Hi Alison,
You may be able to pay electronically. Look for a reference to IBAN (international bank account number) and you should be able to transfer direct to this account if you have web banking, or at your local bank branch. The bill should have a %26quot;Facture%26quot; (invoice) number as a reference, so include this plus the name of the patient in the comment field to allow the hospital to recognise the bill being paid. Make sure to request that all charges are paid by yourself or the Hospital will come back for you to pay their bank charges.
Sorry if you knew this, but I%26#39;m not sure how widely known IBAN is outside Europe.
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IBAN for the Trésorerie Générale de l%26#39;AP Hp /
IBAN : FR76 3000 1000 6400 0000 9150 729
BIC : BDFEFRPPXXX
Banque de France, Paris
Bank Code : 30001
Office : 00064
Account # : W7530000000
Key : 37
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Signof thetimes...
In Hawaii we had to pay to have a flower pod that my then 2 yr old shoved up his nose... we were required to have a credit card shown BEFORE treatment... and to pay up front ( actually before we left the clinic) and then have our insurance reemburse us at home.
If it was truly %26quot; emergency care%26quot; then of course I hope most places would in fact treat first get payment second., but frankly most tourists need help with issues that are not true medical emergencies.
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Posted on: 6:02 am, today
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joan1 wrote: %26lt;%26lt;PS ,, isn%26#39;t it nice that they treated your friend with no up front payment, I have a feeling that wouldn%26#39;t happen in many countries!! %26gt;%26gt;
I%26#39;m having a difficult time seeing what%26#39;s so especially unique about this.
In the U.S., any person who goes to a hospital emergency room, with or without insurance, also gets treated without payment up front. It%26#39;s a requirement of U.S. law that hospitals provide emergency care first, ask for payment later. And those who can%26#39;t pay get the emergency care free.
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no -- in the US if you can%26#39;t pay they will turn you over to an aggressive collection agency which will drive you into bankruptcy if you cannot pay and you will lose your house, your car, and probably your job if you have one
and if you need follow up treatment etc etc, tough luck
and then the hospital will eventually write off the bill (which is likely to be in the thousands for ER treatment) as %26#39;charity care%26#39; which gives the PR image of providing charity care but which is just another word for mauling the client financially
and if the injury is not immediately life threatening, you are likely to be turned away from the ER without treatment if you can%26#39;t produce money or insurance -- that can include things like broken arms and legs and cuts that need stitching but are not life threatening
and after you are treated, if you don%26#39;t have money, they will put you in a cab in your hospital gown and slippers and dump you on the street near a rescue mission
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