# Changes to healthcare



## JaneyO (Sep 24, 2012)

What is happening to the good Spanish healthservice? I hear we are going to have to pay for lots of things like physio, some operations won't be available and as a 'non working but only 60' dependent of a pensioner I am finding they keep trying to change my healthcard, now it shows'no documents' in spite of having E121 with my husband since 2009 and I have to pay 100% of my medicine costs. Is there anywhere I can look for detailed and up to date information in English about all the changes? Is anyone else experiencing problems? PS I am in the Balearics.


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

You shouldnt have to pay 100% of your medicine costs if you are a dependent. You will have to pay a percentage, for sure.

Let me guess .... are you registered as a resident in Spain?


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

JaneyO said:


> What is happening to the good Spanish healthservice? I hear we are going to have to pay for lots of things like physio, some operations won't be available and as a 'non working but only 60' dependent of a pensioner I am finding they keep trying to change my healthcard, now it shows'no documents' in spite of having E121 with my husband since 2009 and I have to pay 100% of my medicine costs. Is there anywhere I can look for detailed and up to date information in English about all the changes? Is anyone else experiencing problems? PS I am in the Balearics.


are you both registered as resident & have you both been making tax declarations since you have been here?

it was announced in August that those without _all _their paperwork in order would have their health cards cancelled as of September 1st.

perhaps that's the problem?

however, if you're certain that you _do _have all the paperwork, contact the DWP in Newcastle for an S1 (replaced the E121 May 2010) - then go through the process of re-registering by taking this form & your resident registration certificate to the INSS 

with that in place you will receive healthcare on the same basis as a Spanish national - & _everyone _is now having to pay something towards healthcare


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## JaneyO (Sep 24, 2012)

xabiachica said:


> are you both registered as resident & have you both been making tax declarations since you have been here?
> 
> it was announced in August that those without _all _their paperwork in order would have their health cards cancelled as of September 1st.
> 
> ...


Yes we have all the paperwork have registered E121 etc. As they have endless copies of all my paperwork already I don't know how they can say there is no poaperwork in place. I will go to the INSS and try to sort it out. My pharmacist who alerted me to the problem says he know people who have had to go to gestoria to get it fixed. Thanks for the info, I hadn't heard about cancelling the health card.


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## JaneyO (Sep 24, 2012)

Forgot to say as well I already contacted Newcastle and they said they could not send us an S1 form as we alread have an E121


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

JaneyO said:


> Yes we have all the paperwork have registered E121 etc. As they have endless copies of all my paperwork already I don't know how they can say there is no poaperwork in place. I will go to the INSS and try to sort it out. My pharmacist who alerted me to the problem says he know people who have had to go to gestoria to get it fixed. Thanks for the info, I hadn't heard about cancelling the health card.


yes that would be what the pharmacist means - a gestor will be able to sort it out for you fairly easily, though you can do it yourself

So take the E121 with your green resident certificate & copies of tax returns to INSS

a lot of people managed to get health cards in the past without actually being resident - & in many cases not actually being entitled to the healthcare, although you clearly _are _entitled to it, as dependent of your husband

I know someone in my town who isn't 'resident', although he spends enough time here that he really should register , ...... he has a health card which was wrongly isssued to him when he produced his EHIC - since they are for holiday-makers only, he should never have been given a permanent health card - yet he has one

I have a feeling that the govt has realised that this sort of thing has been happening - & that a lot of people are illegally (although not necessarily through any fault of theirs) using the healthcare system here - which of course the country can't afford

so they are cracking down & the easiest way to sort this out is to cross-check with the register of residents & the tax office

if someone has a health card & doesn't appear on either or both of those lists then there's a good chance they shouldn't have one - so the card gets cancelled

some mistakes will be made - but in your case if you have all the relevant paperwork in order it should be easy enough to sort out


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

JaneyO said:


> Yes we have all the paperwork have registered E121 etc. As they have endless copies of all my paperwork already I don't know how they can say there is no poaperwork in place. I will go to the INSS and try to sort it out. My pharmacist who alerted me to the problem says he know people who have had to go to gestoria to get it fixed. Thanks for the info, I hadn't heard about cancelling the health card.




When you say 'all the paperwork', are you including;


E121
Residencia
Tax returns
Passport
Proof of *sufficient *income (E121 may not be enough?)


If not, then this may be the reason.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

snikpoh said:


> When you say 'all the paperwork', are you including;
> 
> 
> E121
> ...


I'm hoping she already has the green resident registration cert. & that it's an error - if that isn't the case they'll clearly have to start from scratch with registering & proof of income etc..... 

actually JaneyO - is your husband's card still fully active?


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

xabiachica said:


> *I'm hoping she already has the green resident registration cert. & that it's an error *- if that isn't the case they'll clearly have to start from scratch with registering & proof of income etc.....
> 
> actually JaneyO - is your husband's card still fully active?


Thats the question I asked in post 2, which seems to have been missed


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## JaneyO (Sep 24, 2012)

Yes my husbands card is fine and active, he pays 10% as a pensioner. I have all the papers including copyof E121 issued in 2009 showing I am entitled as his dependant. What I do not have is copies of tax returns as I have no income I never made one. Our income is only my husbands old age pension, we went to the gestoria in 2011 to find out about making a tax return, he told us as our income is well below the threshold we were not actually required to make a declaration, so we don't have any tax returns. We don't pay uk tax because we do not have enough income. Have they changed the rules about making tax returns recently, if so I will have to go back to the gestor and hope they don't fine us too much for making it late- or did I hear something about an amnesty until November?
Really appreciate you guys helping me out with this, we've always done everything by the book since we moved but the problem is I do not know what it is I do not know! everything keeps changing, one of the problems of living here is you never know what gaping hole is waiting to swallow you up next! Hope I don't get run over by a bus before I sort this out!! 
Ps we both have the green residents certificates issues in 2010 they do not have an expiry date on them, we have been residents since 2005


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Stravinsky said:


> Thats the question I asked in post 2, which seems to have been missed


I noticed 



JaneyO said:


> Yes my husbands card is fine and active, he pays 10% as a pensioner. I have all the papers including copyof E121 issued in 2009 showing I am entitled as his dependant. What I do not have is copies of tax returns as I have no income I never made one. Our income is only my husbands old age pension, we went to the gestoria in 2011 to find out about making a tax return, he told us as our income is well below the threshold we were not actually required to make a declaration, so we don't have any tax returns. We don't pay uk tax because we do not have enough income. Have they changed the rules about making tax returns recently, if so I will have to go back to the gestor and hope they don't fine us too much for making it late- or did I hear something about an amnesty until November?
> Really appreciate you guys helping me out with this, we've always done everything by the book since we moved but the problem is I do not know what it is I do not know! everything keeps changing, one of the problems of living here is you never know what gaping hole is waiting to swallow you up next! Hope I don't get run over by a bus before I sort this out!!
> Ps we both have the green residents certificates issues in 2010 they do not have an expiry date on them, we have been residents since 2005


it seems that it's some sort of mistake if your husband's card is fine but yours isn't

you _should_ just need to get everything re-activated by taking your resident cert, passport & E121 to the INSS

it could be the lack of tax returns causing the problem though

although it's not a requirement that you make a tax return if your pension is tax paid in the UK, it is best that you always do - even if you make a nil declaration here - I have even heard of pensioners getting a rebate when they do this!!

we are hearing that this lack of a tax return is causing problems for quite a lot of pensioners with the new healthcare regs


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## JaneyO (Sep 24, 2012)

Thanks a lot for that I will let you know how I get on!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

JaneyO said:


> Thanks a lot for that I will let you know how I get on!


please do!!


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

xabiachica said:


> I noticed
> 
> 
> it seems that it's some sort of mistake if your husband's card is fine but yours isn't
> ...




I'm not even a pensioner but I get a rebate every year which more than pays for the gestor to do our returns!


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## JaneyO (Sep 24, 2012)

*Health card problem*



xabiachica said:


> please do!!


Well I did as suggested, went to the INSS with every piece of paper I have but they didn't want to see any of them! He looked it up on the computer, put in my husband's heathcard details and mine and after a bit of faffing about said it would be changed although it would take a few days. The computer must have shown they had our E121 as he didn't even want a copy of it- unheard of- or any other paperwork. He said they had been 'going through the lists' but I still don't understand why I got marked as 'no documents' when they obviously had them. 
I'm not breaking open the cava yet until I've been to the pharmacy in a few days to see if anything actually does get done but fingers crossed!
I am surprised to hear there are people around who have health cards who are not entitled to them, my GP said they are trying to eliminate 'health tourism'. The hoops my husband and I had to go through when he became a pensioner were staggering, endless paperwork, copies of paperwork visits to the INSS and health centre, how do people get cards if they are really not entitled- beats me!!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

JaneyO said:


> Well I did as suggested, went to the INSS with every piece of paper I have but they didn't want to see any of them! He looked it up on the computer, put in my husband's heathcard details and mine and after a bit of faffing about said it would be changed although it would take a few days. The computer must have shown they had our E121 as he didn't even want a copy of it- unheard of- or any other paperwork. He said they had been 'going through the lists' but I still don't understand why I got marked as 'no documents' when they obviously had them.
> I'm not breaking open the cava yet until I've been to the pharmacy in a few days to see if anything actually does get done but fingers crossed!
> I am surprised to hear there are people around who have health cards who are not entitled to them, my GP said they are trying to eliminate 'health tourism'. The hoops my husband and I had to go through when he became a pensioner were staggering, endless paperwork, copies of paperwork visits to the INSS and health centre, how do people get cards if they are really not entitled- beats me!!


thanks for coming back to us - it does si¡sound as if it was just a simple mistake then

let's hope they do just re-activate everything in a day or so as he said they would


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## JaneyO (Sep 24, 2012)

Oh dear good job I didn't break open the cava, it's over three weeks now since I went to INSS, I was expecting a 'few days' to stretch a bit this being Spain, but nothing has been changed on my card it still says 'no documents' and I had to pay full price, over 20 euros for a pack of pills yesterday. I asked at my local health centre they just shrugged their shoulders, I'm going back to inss tomorrow to see if I can find out what's going on. The system here in the Balearics seems to be in chaos, so many people are having trouble with their cards, pensioners having to pay 40% instead of 10% and my pharmacist is upset because they've cancelled his wife's card and they are both Spanish and lifelong residents, it's just crazy.


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## JaneyO (Sep 24, 2012)

Went to INSS they have no idea why the card has not been changed! They gave me the papers to get a new card, I took them into my health centre and when I've been to the bank they said go back and they will give me a new card straight away. I know someone else with the same problem as me and he ended up getting a new card as well. So, for anyone else out there in the same situation ask the INSS for the paperwork to get a new card as they don't seem to be able to reactivate whatever it is they cancelled on the original one. Hope this helps anyone else in the same boat!


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