Mutuelles or how to get help towards the cost of your glasses

Mutuelles and glasses are very confusing and nobody has been able to give me a definitive answer on how they work with glasses until now.

Here goes on what I believe is the answer. First of all, does your mutuelle pay towards glasses? If they do then;

Scenario 1. – You have your eyes examined in France by an ophthalmologist and are given a prescription. You order some spectacles at an optician. You show them your carte vital which is swiped and you get your small reimbursement from the health service. At this point, CPAM – the health service, send the information to your mutuelle and you get paid.

Scenario 2. You get your eyes tested at an optician. Get a receipt and send it to your mutuelle – a few of them will pay for your sight test but not many.

Scenario 3. After a sight test at an optician, you order glasses, and when you have collected them, you send your receipt to the mutuelle and they pay their contribution towards them.

Scenario 4. If they do not pay out under scenario 3, then you go to a doctor (this can be any doctor –even a gynæcologist, a pædiatrician, a psychiatrist, ... or a general practitioner!) to get a prescription and then CPAM and the mutuelle will reimburse you.

Scenario 5. Some mutuelles will only pay out if you go to a specific optician. You are supposed to have freedom of choice on where you go so this means your choice is order where we specify or you will not be reimbursed. 

I am registering with CPAM, so will be able to help you get reimbursed when I am.

My thanks to Jean-Luc Dubié of the Association des Optométristes de France for his help in writting this article..