I have been an ophthalmologist since 2001 and have been working at the MST in Enschede and Oldenzaal.
Already in 2010 I saw the health care industry in the Netherlands not going the way that would enable me as an ophthalmologist to deliver quality as I want. The care is not a market, at least not a commercial market. At the time I expected that the insurers would get their money's worth and that the administration would be for our professional group.
Unfortunately, if I follow the Dutch news, it is worse than I imagined.
Jan van der Lee has found a nice place in Epernay, half an hour under Reims, where I have been working in my own "Cabinet" since February 2013, within a Clinique created for me and rented by me. I am here with my husband, who is doing the business, and two children (2005 and 2007) who were completely bilingual!
I have my own secretary, an optometrist and completely new equipment (OCT, Alscan, Echo, YAG and Argon laser, Angio equipment etc.). Cataract operations I do in the O.K. from the Clinique with excellent and highly motivated staff.
I can provide the care that I want and in the way that I think it should be, because you are being released here. No idiotic administration or excessive controls and I can freely adjust my prices within limits to my investments (and my pension goals).
Because people can go directly to the ophthalmologist without referral, one comes across everything from me, from glasses, through controls for glaucoma, to severe pathology, so really from (very) young to (very) old. The patients happy, I happy. In addition, I also earn better than in NL, while I do not want to. Oh, and further: I do not run services ...
There is a very large shortage of ophthalmologists in all regions of France (except the big cities!), I would also like to have a colleague because of the big help, that colleague is helped in everything to make the installation as simple as possible. ..
We are here in the middle of the Champagne region, I have a beautiful house at 220 meters altitude, there are of course many grape fields, but also forests, lakes and fields: a beautiful and varied landscape. I also travel by train in an hour and 40 minutes in Paris for a day out ... but there are many beautiful places in France, something for everyone!
Irene Hogeboom from Buggenum, ophthalmologist.