Literally just (Friday) had a discussion with my German colleague who passed a kidney stone on the day before (Thursday) in Germany.
All was fine until it came to the topic of his health insurance card: see, on the Thursday he was taken to the hospital they kept his health insurance card. When he went to his actual doctor the morning after they wouldn’t even talk to him unless he had it and getting it back from the people who took him to the hospital was taking too long; so he started the long and drawn out process of getting a temporary bit of paper mailed to his address from his insurance company stating that he had insurance.
The NHS, for all its faults and the weight of its underfunding: would never have a problem like that.
I feel your friend little bit exaggerated the situation or simply had bad luck.
The staff of the doctor you usually go knows you and don‘t ask your statuary health insurance card upon each visit. They have it in your file.
Worst case you present a paper you download from your insurance provider‘s website.
As a last resort, you declare you are privately insured and you walk out. They send the invoice to home and you send it to your insurer or pay from your pocket. A simple GP visit does not cost more than 40-50 Euros.
People are helpful. Maybe the staff of their doctor was not that day.
> so he started the long and drawn out process of getting a temporary bit of paper mailed to his address from his insurance company stating that he had insurance.
It happened to me that I saw a doctor and had forgotten to bring my health insurance card. I was then required to show it within (I think) ten days or be charged the cost of the visit myself.
All it took to fix that later that day was to log into the website of my health insurer, download said document as pdf and mail it to the doctor's office.
It might not be as simple as you might like but it does not have to be as bad as their experience was.
All was fine until it came to the topic of his health insurance card: see, on the Thursday he was taken to the hospital they kept his health insurance card. When he went to his actual doctor the morning after they wouldn’t even talk to him unless he had it and getting it back from the people who took him to the hospital was taking too long; so he started the long and drawn out process of getting a temporary bit of paper mailed to his address from his insurance company stating that he had insurance.
The NHS, for all its faults and the weight of its underfunding: would never have a problem like that.