Obtaining Carte Vitale

[Sue Smith]

Thought this might be useful for people about to "undergo the process." A French friend advised us not to visit the CPAM office as there would be far too much opportunity for hassle (as proved by various past postings.) She suggested that we write instead, advising us to keep our various letters short and to the point as, in her opinion, longer letters are often "lost!" We began the process about three weeks ago, it having taken almost six months to persuade the UK to forward us the correct E forms. Our "Cartes Vitales" arrived this morning. Good eh? We don't write brilliant French but have had pleasant reponses, two sets of interim papers and a request for photocopies of Passports, birth certificates and RIB. The whole process was speedy and absolutely hassle free. Maybe this might be the way to go? Good luck everyone.
Regards,
Sue.

[Bobdude]

I would agree with your point about the CPAM offices being very busy and a bit too much hassle - but another option to consider is many CPAM offices have one-day or even half-day sessions at various places - small towns around the department - and we were very pleasantly surprised that the process was so easy at one of these sessions - no queue at all and our application was processed there and then. We received our Carte Vitales about 10 days later.

[Jennys]

I just felt I had to reply with our experience of getting the Carte Vitale. It took over 1 year!!

In October 2002 I sent all copies of birth certificates etc to our local CPAM. After several months I rang up to be told that they had never received the letter, so I re-sent everything. Then we got a letter saying we would receive our Cartes Vitales but in the meantime we could use the letter as proof of our entitlement. More months passed and every time I visited the doctor he asked if we had received our Cartes Vitales. Eventually the doctor actually rang up CPAM whilst I was with him and spoke to someone who said they would sort out our dossier. Several months later - still nothing.

Then I started work and received a letter from CRAM (Caisse Regionale) and I explained that we had received the letter with our entitlement but not the Cartes Vitales. The girl from CRAM looked into the problem and it turned out to be something very simple but no one had told us - that the copy of our English birth certificates were not good enough(the certificate being too long to be copied onto an A4 sheet). We sent a new copy and bingo - the cards arrived after one year!

Jenny

[Mikejanis]

Think Suesmith is right to advise written requests to CPAM to obtain Carte Vitale. We visited local CPAM on 8 April and were told to return with birth certs as this was all that was required. We visited again on 15 April birth certs in hand and were given an aplication form and told by a very rude lady to return with evidence of 2003 income. We visited yet again on 22 April armed with completed form and necessary evidence as stated on back of form.

We collected our queue number and awaited our turn only to be informed that it was a different person who dealt with our application -go to booth number 1. Different person was on the telephone for 30 mins in full view of both parties. We were then called in to be informed we had been wrongly advised it was a behind the scenes person we wanted to see. After another 15 mins behind the scene person appeared and informed us we needed evidence of 2002 income. We were resident in UK until March 2003. We expained we had supplied 2003 records plus corresponding French Tax Return but were told extremely rudely that this was not sufficient.

We will try again next week armed with 2002 records and they also want copy of UK tax return.

Luckily there is a very good restaurant next door Menu de Jour 12 Euros