Health insurance - depends what your plan is

The bill from last weekends sirens and flashing lights came in on Friday. Just about all I can say is the excess for both of us for the year is now covered. We can get busy visiting doctors like a hypochondriac with webMD on twitter feed.
I still don't quite understand how Switzerland does health insurance. It's compulsory for everyone living in the country for more than 3 months, unless you are a diplomat at the UN. The premiums are eye watering, even if you go for a reasonable level of excess, which we have done. In addition to that we still have to co-pay 10 percent of the cost of treatment after paying the excess.
Our insurance is provide by a company called Swica, but presumably there are a bunch of them that offer similar services. I think Sarah's work advised us to use these people, what would we know?


Cost of insurance
We went for nearly the cheapest options we could. For us, I think, we didn't sign up to things like "I'm happy to be cut open by a monkey" and "anaesthetist? soddit, pass me the absinthe", which would have made it really cheap. We did max out options for the girls, though kids generally get support from the government.
Our near basement options mean we are required to go to a Swica branded surgery to see our GP, rather than being able to chose one we like in our neighbourhood. Whilst lack of proximity is a slight inconvenience, frankly it's no bad thing - it's reassuring to think that someone other than a university lecturer has decided the doctors are capable. The girls however go to a paediatrician we found ourselves and decided we liked.


Specialists
The two of us go through our GP to get referred to a specialist, otherwise presumably the insurance firm won't cover it, and as long as we have that referral, we can deal direct with the specialist from then on. Some of them are private specialists, who live in nice offices with all the kit and I guess, charge a fortune. Others actually work for public bodies, such as HUG, the university hospital in Geneva. One of the tips I got from a doctor when he referred me to a specialist, was to make sure I get a copy of everything he produces, all reports, scans, tests, whatever, as you've paid for them, so you get them. I'd never thought of it that way. Coming from a country where medicine is fully socialised, if a doctor takes blood, or a radiographer takes an x-ray, you assume it will get to the right person.

Doctors who speak English
So far the doctors we have met have all spoken very good English, our GP and the paediatrician we picked out. In Geneva there are doctors who advertise themselves as English speakers, though I have no idea whether they are mother tongue or not. Whilst it's understandable that people might prefer to discus health with someone who speaks their language well, having an out of the everyday conversation half in English and half in French actually really helps your understanding of the foreign language. Our experience has been that medical professionals speak pretty good English, except the paramedics last weekend and the emergency service telephone operators! But I'd say we've had very few problems. I guess the paramedics and 144 phone operators are quick at understanding pidgin French.

Despite having covered the excess on our policy for the year, I'm hoping we won't be back to the doctor's any time soon. I don't currently follow webMD on twitter and don't intend to in the future.