Lisbon, Portugal

Lisbon has several hospitals, as well as clinics and health care centers (centros de saúde): hospitals can be public or private, clinics are private, and health care centers are public. Each public hospital serves an area of the city and its inhabitants. Hospitals that serve one specific type of patient, like the Lisbon pediatric hospital (Hospital Dona Estefânia), or illness, like the oncology hospital (Instituto Português de Oncologia de Lisboa), are an exception. These serve people from the entire Lisbon district, which includes areas like Cascais and Sintra.

For public health services you either pay nothing, or a fee called taxa moderadora may apply. In the case of an appointment with a general practitioner, the fee is 4.50 euros. In some cases, no payment is required. For example, if you call the public health number (Saúde 24) and they consider you to be in need of urgent care, you’ll be exempt from paying a taxa moderadora. Cancer patients are also exempt from paying for several things, like doctor appointments. Blood donors and transplant patients are exempt from this fee as well.

Getting an appointment in the public sector can take months, especially in the cities. Many people use both the public and the private health sectors. There are plenty of health insurance options right now: some charge less than 5 euros a month and some don’t cost anything at all to the users because they’re paid for by the company employing them. The type of insurance you have will determine how much you pay for appointments, procedures, and exams.

For a dental checkup or cleaning, the price without insurance is around 60 euros (at MD Clínica). For a visit to the GP, it will be about 95 euros (at Joaquim Chaves Saúde). With insurance, these values can be as low as a third of the original, on average.

I can give my own example of using both health care sectors. For the past three years, my 5-year-old daughter has been going for regular checkups with a neurologist in the Lisbon pediatric hospital, which belongs to the public sector. All the appointments, exams, and physiotherapy sessions there were completely free. Recently she had an ear, nose, and throat appointment in a private hospital. The appointment included a small procedure and the whole thing cost only 14.50 euros with insurance.

Doctors and staff in private health care are more likely to speak and understand better English, but keep in mind many doctors work for both the public and the private sectors.