The ECHI Card (European Health Insurance card) is a very useful bit of plastic if you’re an EU citizen travelling to European Union/European Economic Area countries, and you’re in need of emergency healthcare.
The card allows EU citizens to free healthcare in public hospitals across the 27 EU countries as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, and is intended for emergency use.
However, there have been reports and critisim that some Spanish hospitals are rejecting the card and told tourists to reclaim the cost of treatment via their travel insurance according to the European Commission.
The European Commission has requesed information from the Spanish government – this being the first stage of an infringement procedure which could eventually result in a fine for non-compliance.
The European Commission notes it has recived “hunderds” of complaints regarding Spain, with Spanish hosptials either billing people to their travel insurance or in some cases, to the person that fell ill directly – which is what ECHI is meant to prevent as the cost is meant to be picked up by the citizen’s home country (for example, a British citizen who falls ill in Spain, the UK National Health Service will pick up the bill ).
Whilst ECHI is a great service – it does not replace travel insurance. This is important as ECHI does not cover private healthcare and repatriation back to an EU citizens home country. Whilst some see travel insurance as optional, it’s one of those costs that can pay for itself when something goes wrong.
And yes, I keep one of these in my personal travel wallet.
For most EU countries, check with your countries health provider who can issue your ECHI cards. UK Citizens find out more at http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcareabroad/EHIC/Pages/about-the-ehic.aspx and apply at https://www.ehic.org.uk/Internet/startApplication.do