Best medical aid/insurance in Romania

Medicover Romania

medicover.ro

Private medical insurance is not a requirement, not sure where you got that info.  I am insured thru CAS, pay 30 something Lei each month and it's all I need, never had a problem with immigration or anyone else.

romaniac wrote:

Private medical insurance is not a requirement, not sure where you got that info.  I am insured thru CAS, pay 30 something Lei each month and it's all I need, never had a problem with immigration or anyone else.

I believe private medical insurance is a requirement romaniac. When I applied for a short-stay visitor's visa the embassy requested me to provide proof of that (fortunately I could just use my current insurance provider), and for long-stay visas Romania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has this webpage which includes in its list of requirements: "proof of social health insurance of the applicant;"

And Emil, thanks for providing that link to Medicover ... I find in really hard to believe that even a medical insurance company cannot arrange to have an English-language version of their website. If they cannot even do that, what chances are that they're going to have English forms, English call-centre agents, or *any* sort of support for me as a foreigner? I've seen first-hand just how little English is spoken in Romania, but that doesn't mean that as a consumer I don't have any choice ... hopefully there are some providers that do actually speak English.

Briefly CAS is a fee which is linked to the contact's work. In Romania, when a labor contract who has several related charges are paid gross salary / wage tax / unemployment / CAS / ETC. If employees are not required to apply for this because they -employer-  calculates and pays to the state budget.

The main idea of this CAS which is a sum to access public health services cover a wide range not only some minimal services.

If someone wants to have access to health services can access a subscription offered by private health providers - Medicover Romania, Sanada, Queen Mary. For these providers anyone can buy a package of health services covering various services - consultation to the doctor / medical tests / etc.

Sorry sorry I indicated medicover.ro site correctly would have MEDICOVER.COM. I assure you that in Romania a foreign citizen can access these medical services smoothly. Medicover Romania staff - nurses, doctors, call center - are English speaking. I assure you that you will be not only foreign clients, database clients include strangers who work in Romania - Embassies / multinational companies.

Please do not say that you will not be able to access  because they do not speak English. It is not fair play.

On the another hand if we refer at holiday we need travel insurance -  gothaer.ro/?lang=en_us.

Good luck!

EmilMarius wrote:

Briefly CAS is a fee which is linked to the contact's work. In Romania, when a labor contract who has several related charges are paid gross salary / wage tax / unemployment / CAS / ETC. If employees are not required to apply for this because they -employer-  calculates and pays to the state budget.

The main idea of this CAS which is a sum to access public health services cover a wide range not only some minimal services.

If someone wants to have access to health services can access a subscription offered by private health providers - Medicover Romania, Sanador, Queen Mary. For these providers anyone can buy a package of health services covering various services - consultation to the doctor / medical tests / etc.

Sorry I indicated www.medicover.ro site correctly would have www.medicover.com I assure you that in Romania a foreign citizen can access these medical services smoothly. Medicover Romania staff - nurses, doctors, call center - are English speaking. I assure you that you will be not only foreign clients, database clients include strangers who work in Romania - Embassies / multinational companies.

Please do not say that you will not be able to access  because they do not speak English. It is not fair play.

On the another hand if we refer at holiday we need travel insurance -  gothaer.ro/?lang=en_us.

Good luck!

EmilMarius wrote:

Sorry sorry I indicated medicover.ro site correctly would have MEDICOVER.COM ... Please do not say that you will not be able to access  because they do not speak English. It is not fair play.

Thanks for that extra info Emil. As for the language issue, what was I to think of Medicover, when the link to their main corporate homepage was only in Romanian, with no conventional language-switcher option in the top-right corner?

I'm happy to see now that they do actually have an English-language version of their website, even if it does look a bit stripped down. I'll look into it.

Talking about CAS, if I understand you correctly it's debited directly from salaries (around 30lei/month) and paid directly by employers to the State, so that employees have access to the public hospitals?

I wonder if CAS is what Romania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is referring to on their website, when they say that you have to provide "proof of social health insurance of the applicant" for a long-term visa application; or are they referring to private health insurance for use in the private hospitals. Anybody have any ideas?

PS: Emil, I just have to let you know my worst 'language' experience in Romania, which has made me very sceptical of services that aren't multi-lingual. When arriving at Henri Coanda airport, I bought a prepaid Orange cellphone starter pack. Imagine my disappointment when all the instructions with my starter pack were *only* in Romanian, and after inserting the SIM card into my phone, all the smses that arrived with instructions were all in Romanian too! What is Orange (an international brand) thinking, leaving foreign tourists purchasing a starter pack at Romania's biggest international airport stranded like that?

We're English & just used the E111 card when we registered (basically issued by the government in the UK to cover medical treatment whilst on holiday), however you can't use this anymore if you're resident here. We couldn't get CAS insurance as we're not employed & the UK government has withdrawn the S1 form we would need to produce to register. We can't get private insurance due to past serious illness.

I was told by the police officer when we registered that as long as you have valid private health insurance that will suffice even if it's only valid for a month. Hope that helps.

Reillusioned wrote:

EmilMarius wrote:

I wonder if CAS is what Romania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is referring to on their website, when they say that you have to provide "proof of social health insurance of the applicant" for a long-term visa application; or are they referring to private health insurance for use in the private hospitals. Anybody have any ideas?

PS: Emil, I just have to let you know my worst 'language' experience in Romania, which has made me very sceptical of services that aren't multi-lingual. When arriving at Henri Coanda airport, I bought a prepaid Orange cellphone starter pack. Imagine my disappointment when all the instructions with my starter pack were *only* in Romanian, and after inserting the SIM card into my phone, all the smses that arrived with instructions were all in Romanian too! What is Orange (an international brand) thinking, leaving foreign tourists purchasing a starter pack at Romania's biggest international airport stranded like that?

This is what I was referring to in my post, which you seemed not to understand.  MFA does requires proof of social health insurance, however it does NOT have to be private health insurance.  Anyone can go to CAS (Casa Nationale de Asigurare de Sanatate) in their city/county and get insured and get the proof needed for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for a fraction of the cost of a private insurance.  I speak from 8 years of experience doing of so.

Although your comment about Orange was not directed at me, allow me to comment.  Orange does provide the option to receive sms instructions and menus in English, you just have to select the option.  Also, most Orange stores (and for certain the customer call centers) have English speaking employees that can assist you.  It is not unreasonable to expect that in Romania, Romanian language would be the default and predominant language used.

We went with a Romanian friend to visit the local doctor. He phoned CAS & they said that we must have a form S1 from the UK health service - apparently this is so Romania can bill the UK for our treatment. The UK have withdrawn the S1 from most expats. CAS in Pitesti have told us we cannot get the state health insurance without the form.

romaniac wrote:

It is not unreasonable to expect that in Romania, Romanian language would be the default and predominant language used.

Would it be unreasonable to expect at least one small English insert (given that it IS the international language of business) in the starter pack, explaining how to change the language, without *all* of the instructions being in Romanian? I'm sorry, that's still a poor mark for Orange for a starter pack sold in an international airport, which - as an international brand - ought to have known better. It's just richly ironic, that the communication *media* doesn't know how to communicate instructions on its use.

Whether or not I could get CAS (thanks for that tidbit Robin & Sue - I definitely wouldn't be able to get it then, because South Africa wouldn't pay a penny for me anywhere else in the world), something I have to share is my discovery that at least one major Romanian medical insurer isn't actually providing conventional insurance (in the sense that I know it).

I couldn't figure out how this company's top-level package (I'll keep them anonymous) cost only around Euro 60/month, when in South Africa my entry-level medical insurance costs Euro 125/month. When I questioned the consultant further, it turned out that this premium cover included a '20% discount for hospitalization' in a hospital in their network, and for a small additional amount I could get 80% cover for three days' hospital stay in a year.

Now I don't know why you might use medical insurance, but for me the only reason is in case I get seriously injured in an accident and end up in an Intensive Care Unit (where you might have to stay for a week or more, at a cost of thousands of Euros *per day*), or get a dread disease like cancer and need specialised hospital treatment or surgery.

So I'm kind of back to square one ... does anybody know of a real Romanian medical insurance provider that covers for 100% of all costs? (as a side-note, in South Africa you end up getting covered for 200-400% of medical costs, because a lot of private hospitals charge rates that are so much higher than industry benchmark averages - I guess it's the same in Romania).

Thanks!

The British Embassy just published a list:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati … st-romania

Hope it helps

Safrican2014 wrote:

The British Embassy just published a list:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati … st-romania

Hope it helps

Nice one, thanks! I'm getting the feeling that Romanians aren't big into their medical insurance, and I guess it might have a lot to do with the salary levels. In SA, your car insurance and health insurance are right up there with your rent and groceries as 'must-haves', just because *nobody* wants to rely on a state hospital unless absolutely no other choice.

Hi there!

Yeah thats so true though I have to mention that some companies include private health insurance as a benefit so most people/expats are insured that way.

With regards to the public health system. It is of course a lot better than SA. I have first hand experience because I had emergency operation done 2 weeks ago and I had no problems whatsoever (other than perhaps the bribing part which made me slightly anxious). I guess it also depends on which hospital you go to, they all have different reputations even though they work under the same system.

If you opt for the national health insurance (cnas),  this link may help: http://www.euraxess.gov.ro/en/incoming- … -care.html  .You may need a family doctor first though to take you through the process because their website (http://www.cnas.ro/page/cardul-national … ate-2.html) is a little unclear ...