I know a couple arrived here a few years ago.
The wife was already pregnant and was told she would not be covered by Swiss Insurance for the birth of her baby.
She opted to travel back to the UK as there was no way they could " afford " to have the baby here in Switzerland. . .
Perhaps the regs have changed since then . . .
This was back in 97. . . . .
Cheers,
Dan
We have insurance with Groupe Mutuel and they are really great- we haven't had any problems with them and they have paid for everything we have sent them concerning the pregnancy and upcoming birth. I think our policy is based in Schaffhausen though, as that is where my husband is registered, even though we are living here in Geneva as a second residency...so that might make a difference in terms of what they are willing to do? Although the insurance policy he has is through his workplace here in Geneva, so not sure exactly how that affects things....but anyway, its all working out great!
Wannabe mentioned that the french speaking part of switzerland is not very receptive to natural birthing methods or home births or water births and she is generally right - at least from the perspective of doctors and hospitals/cliniques....
However, we have been very blessed to make contact with the midwives at the Arcade Sages Femmes in Geneva and there are about 6 midwives there who specialise in home births and they are all fabulous and very supportive. Our midwife is quite happy for us to have a water birth at home, as long as there are no major complications, in which case we can easily transfer to the cantonal hospital which is only about 5-10 minutes away. So that is great.
Groupe Mutuel (The insurance company) have even agreed to pay for the rental of a birthing pool that we will be using at our home birth because we have private/complimentary insurance and if we opted to go to a clinique it would cost them a LOT more than us doing it at home. So they have obligingly agreed to carrying all the home birth costs, and they will also cover any additional visits by the midwife after the birth to monitor on recovery etc...over and above the standard amount. (which from what we found out from Groupe Mutuel was only 3 visits...so they have increased it to 10 for us).
So if you are looking for a good insurance company I would totally recommend Groupe Mutuel cause they really have been very good to us...just call and talk to them and you never know what they might do!
Good luck with everything!!
I am due anytime in the next 2-4 weeks and am looking forward to it all now that we have everything sorted :-)
Hi , well am new on this, my husband and I , we are waiting our first child, we supposed to have our child in the middle of february, we still i dont know were, the reasons... well i dont speak german, i just speak spanish and like you can see a little of english so search information on internet dont help to much.
We live in Zürich kanton (in a little town Thalwil) and i already have a doctor, she in the last check of the baby, she ask me were we wanna gave birth our baby, and i really dont know...
How work all here?, since march i have my ensurance with the company avanex and i have the product Top krankenplefe zusatzvers , and hospital Eco.
Well i still dont know how much cover and were we can go, also i dont know if I just go to any clinic or my doctor have so search one i can go.
please if someone know how this work,
thanks a lot
It is very scary as my regular dr. is not allowed to perfrom surgery in the hopsital so it will have to be who ever is on duty that day!!! So far I am going to Clinic Beaulieu, a couple of friends had delivery there and are very happy. I even spoke to some local moms at my daughters school and they were quite happy with the HUG maternity ward also. So I guess both options should be fine , obviously the private clinics have a lot of other facilities which are not there in the general hospital but then it is very expensive, so unless u are covered by insurance it is pretty unaffordable.
One friend told mne that u have to be registered with the insurance company for atleast a year before being pregnant to avail of the complete insurance. I am not sure of this info though. You can try and call a couple of insurance comapnies for details.
I know quite a few people who've given birth there (or been born there, if you look at it that way). I even know repeat customers - and I think most of the serious stuff took place in English (just the occasional nurse did not speak English).
This is fairly indicative of most places in Zurich - so hopefully this puts your mind at ease.
as for insurance, I will sort something out with the new company but if its not possible to get this covered "after the event" as it were, then we will just pay privately as we would have done in UK anyway...
quote covermoles;104647]we are planning to emigrate to Zurich and my wife is pregnant - lots of talk here about water birth with no pain relief... we are worried that this is the norm... she had wanted to have the option of a "mobile epidural" which basically is a localised anaesthetic injection, if necessary... but would not want this to be frowned upon... any advice? also, can anyone recommend a good private hospital in Zurich?[/quote]
Thought I would post this here, my wife is now pregnant and being complete newbies in relation to medical insurance issues in CH can someone advise on what we do in relation to paying/getting the bills paid.
We have just paid the first raft of bills!! We are with Swica btw.
Do we send the bills to Swica, do we pay them first and then claim it etc.....
Sorry it's such a numpty question but looking through the bits and pieces we got when we took out the insurance I can only find very general info. We did receive one bill from Swica with an invoice stating 'Nil' contribution from Swica.