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My wife & I will be retiring to the Netherlands, but will not be "permanent" residents. We will own our own home there. Can we still buy health insurance in the Netherlands to cover us for things that may occur ...
  1. Divya Arun
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5 years 1 Answer 514 views

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Hi! Does anyone know how the EHIC works in the Netherlands? Like, if you're from another EU country and move here with the card, when do you need to buy regular Dutch insurance? Any special rules to know about? Thanks!
  1. NRIPIO
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5 years 1 Answer 482 views

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Hello, me again with my anxiety. Now that the Coronavirus cases in NL are rapidly climbing, they are not even testing highly suspect cases anymore, i.e. relatives of infected ...
  1. NRIPIO
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5 years 1 Answer 509 views

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Hi, how does the healthcare system work in the Netherlands ? Is it efficient ? What are the main differences between public and private sectors? Is it recommended to purchase private health insurance in the Netherlands? Thanks in advance for sharing your experience !
  1. K V M
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    Okay, I'll try to give this a shot. It's been a while since I got doctored at though, so please accept my apologies if I get some of this stuff hilariously wrong. - The healthcare system is structured to provide tiered access to medical services. If you're feeling ill, you can pay a visit to your friendly local General Practitioner (Huisarts). They will hopefully after some prodding, poking, and saying aaaah, diagnose you and tell you what to do next. Usually this means writing out a receipt you can take to a pharmacy to hook you up with medication of some kind, or an introduction to a medical specialist experienced with your particular illness. If the huisarts cannot determine what ails you, they can send you to a hospital for access to more advanced diagnostic equipment. This cycle of either diagnosing an ailment and sending you off for treatment, or passing you up to the next tier continues up to the university hospitals where they can throw lots of science and expensive machines at you. Not sure what you mean by efficient. Most patients and treatments do not escalate beyond the huisarts/pharmacy level, so pretty efficient, I guess? There is sometimes a waiting list for non-critical surgical procedures since the universities cannot teach enough students because studying medicine takes forever and ever and ever. You will be an old man before you finish the study, even if you're a woman.  - Unlike regular healthcare system described above, the public health sector does not usually get involved with individual patients. They are tasked with monitoring and improving the well-being of society as a whole, or large groups of people. They keep track of infectious diseases, monitor air pollution levels, give out vaccinations, stuff like that. If they are ever interested in you as more than a statistic you may be Patient Zero, so try to avoid that.  - Considering it is illegal not to have health insurance, I would recommend buying some. If you are too broke to pay for it, contact the Tax Office and they'll send you money to pay for it depending on your income. I think you may be able to get around it if you're only here to study for a while, but you should ask your school just in case. If you live here illegally the state will pay for your healthcare with my taxes, so please don't get sick.  Sorry about the wall of text. My english isn't very good. Hope you enjoy your stay
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5 years 1 Answer 495 views

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Hello fellow expats and helpful Nederlanders.  I have four children who each attend an international school here in the Netherlands. I am an expat myself - having moved to North Holland in March of 2017. I pay for my children's tuition ...
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5 years 0 Answers 464 views

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We are looking for any applicable advice or tips on the best and easiest way to open a bank account. Please reply with any tips, suggestions, or personal experiences regarding expat bank accounts. Thank you!
  1. NRIPIO
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5 years 1 Answer 549 views

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Hello everyone, Did you plan your budget before your move to the Netherlands? If so, how did you go about it? How do you save money in your day to day life? Do you find there are any areas where you can't ...
  1. NRIPIO
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    Saving money in the Netherlands is easy: just don't buy stuff :-D There are A TON of secondhand stores where you can buy gently-used furniture and clothes; my personal favorite is Het Goed, which is not quite as cheap as some stores but their quality control is better and generally speaking stuff there is pretty good. I dress my kid almost entirely in secondhand clothes; he needs an entirely new wardrobe about once a year and I'm not spending 20 euros on a pair of jeans that he won't be able to wear for 2 years, hehe....People also flog a lot of things on Marktplaats - I buy most of my clothes through Marktplaats, actually (pro tip: check the neighborhood that's selling, if it's a better one it's usually a steal). For consumables (shampoo, dish detergent, etc) I prefer the Action. The store is an interesting mishmash of stuff and I usually find it worthwhile to stop by once a week or thereabouts.  I buy our cats' wet food there and usually end up getting other small things that we've used up as well. For food: while it is true that you CAN save a lot of money by using the weekly markets, it is not necessarily true that you WILL.  Likewise, while Aldi and Lidl are reputed to be super-cheap, if you do a by-unit comparison you'll find that the cost usually works out to be exactly the same as the Jumbo or even the Albert Heijn. For saving money on food it's best to keep an eye on which stores are running which sales and shop accordingly. If you are lucky enough to have a pluktuin (a kind of small farm where you pick your own produce) the prices aren't cheap, per se, but if you're after specialty produce such as rainbow chard it's much better than the stores. The last thing is a bit of a cheat, but I'm going to put it out there anyway: while the NL doesn't do bulk-buy stores, if you are registered as a business owner, you can get passes for access to several bulk-buying chains.  The Sligro and Hanos are intended for restaurants and catering businesses, while the Makro tends to be more all-purpose. We get laundry detergent from the Makro - when it goes on sale the savings are worth the price of the gas it takes to drive out there
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5 years 1 Answer 498 views

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I recently looked at opening a business bank account with ING, with whom I currently have a private account. I was surprised to see the high price tag to this sort of account, given the fact that there are not ...
  1. NRIPIO
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5 years 1 Answer 634 views

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  1. NRIPIO
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5 years 1 Answer 524 views

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it will depend on the small print on your tickets - some tickets (especially bargain versions) do not permit changes/refunds.  Basically, if the flight you were booked on still flies as per the schedule in April, then it will be ...
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5 years 0 Answers 457 views