WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ACTUALLY NEED A DOCTOR IN EUROPE
Healthcare in Europe costs less than most Americans expect — even when you're paying entirely out of pocket.
A few weeks ago, I got sick while traveling in France. Nothing dramatic — just a minor infection, something that back home would mean a trip to urgent care, a two-hour wait, and a bill that arrives six weeks later. But this time, I was in Europe, and the experience went a little differently. Worth talking about.
I pulled up an app called Doctorsa — a telemedicine platform built specifically for travelers and expats. Within minutes I was on a video call with a licensed doctor. No waiting room, no paperwork, no trying to explain my situation in French. The consultation came to €39.52, about $46.51. The doctor emailed me a prescription on the spot.
I walked it to the nearest pharmacy — and in France, the nearest pharmacy is never far — and paid €8.08, roughly $9.55, for the medication. That same drug at CVS back home runs about $21.25. My total out of pocket for a doctor and a prescription was around $56. In the U.S., that same sequence typically lands somewhere between $80 and $150, often higher.
That's not a lucky fluke. It's how the system is designed.
Across most of Europe, governments negotiate drug prices nationally. There's a ceiling on what pharmacies can charge, generics are the default, and there's very little room for the kind of markup variation that's normal in American retail pharmacy. Even without insurance, you're often paying less than someone back home with coverage.
The other thing that takes Americans a beat to absorb: in Europe, pharmacies are front-line healthcare, not retail stores. People routinely walk in with symptoms before ever seeing a doctor. Pharmacists advise on minor illnesses, recommend treatments, check drug interactions, and tell you honestly whether you actually need a physician. The shelves are smaller. The interaction is more like a quick consult than a shopping trip.
France takes this further than most. The government controls pharmacy density — roughly one per 2,500 to 3,000 residents — and licenses each one to a specific location so corporate chains can't cluster. The result is about 20,000 pharmacies nationwide, one of the highest per-capita rates in Europe. There's always an illuminated green cross nearby. That's not coincidence; France plans pharmacy access the way other countries plan post offices.
France may be the most pharmacy-dense country on the continent, but the underlying structure — regulated drug prices, pharmacists as a first stop, lower out-of-pocket costs — is common across Europe. You'd find something similar in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and most of the Nordic countries. The details vary: different co-pays, different reimbursement systems, different ways of booking a doctor. But the structural logic is shared. Healthcare is treated as infrastructure, and the pricing reflects that.
The telemedicine piece fits cleanly into all of it. A platform like Doctorsa exists because the pharmacy system is set up to receive a prescription and dispense a regulated generic without a lot of friction. Video consult, emailed prescription, walk to the green cross. The whole thing took less than 30 minutes.
Experiences like this are part of why traveling long-term in Europe often costs less than people expect — even when you need healthcare.
The financial side of living in Europe works differently than most Americans expect — and so does the system we use to manage it..
– Scott & Liza
