This post may contain affiliate links, meaning that if you click and make a purchase, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Read the full disclosure here.

Last Updated: November 12, 2022

A feuille de soins is a reimbursement form to claim back medical expenses. Most of the time, the feuille de soins is submitted electronically on your behalf via your carte vitale. However, in some cases, you will pay all medical fees upfront at your appointment and in order to get a reimbursement, you will need to manually submit a request. This will be the expectation if you do not yet have a carte vitale or if you forgot to bring it to your medical appointment. As another example, some doctors do not have a carte vitale reading machine or occasionally those machines malfunction.

Obviously, you can only get reimbursed for medical expenses if you have French health insurance. Even if you don’t have your permanent social security number yet, you can still submit these forms as long as you have a numéro provisoire (temporary number). If you do not have any number at all, hold onto your feuilles de soin. You may be able to ask for reimbursements retroactively if your application is being processed.

Guide: How to Apply for Health Insurance in France as an Expat

Getting a Feuille de soins

At the end of your appointment, the doctor will give you the feuille de soins if you fall into one of the scenarios mentioned above. You can also get one from the pharmacist if you are picking up prescriptions at the pharmacy. Don’t hesitate to explicitly ask for one if you are unsure.

Here is a sample Feuille de soins so you can see what it looks like.

The doctor or pharmacist will partially fill in the form with their contact information, the total cost that you paid out of pocket, and they’ll sign the bottom of the form. They may complete some of your personal information on the form as well. It is up to you to fill in the rest of the form and mail it or drop it off to your local CPAM (Caisse primaire d’assurance maladie).

Completing the Feuille de soins

If you are the one who received care and you have your own health insurance, fill out numbers 1-5 as indicated in these photos and described below.

Feuille de soins top portion to fill out
Top portion of form

PERSONNE RECEVANT les SOINS” (Person receiving care)

  1. nom et prénom (LAST NAME First Name)
  2. numéro d’immatriculation (social security number)
  3. date de naissance (birthdate in this format: DD/MM/YYYY)
  4. ADRESSE DE L’ASSURE(E) (address of the insured person)
Feuille de soins bottom portion to fill out signature
Bottom portion of form

5. signature de l’assuré(e) (signature of the insured person)

*In some instances, the person receiving care is covered under someone else’s health insurance. This is the case for children, for example. If a child is receiving care, their name and information will be in the top portion under “PERSONNE RECEVANT les SOINS” and their parent/guardian’s information will go under “ASSURE(E)”.

Submitting the Form and Supporting Materials

The feuille de soins form will be dated in the top right corner. You have up to two years to submit your reimbursement requests.

Supporting Materials

If you have a prescription (une ordonnance), include it with your form. A prescription provides proof that you needed these services and will ensure that you receive the highest reimbursement. When seeing a specialist, a prescription/referral from your designated primary doctor (médecin traitant) also shows that you have followed the expected path of medical care by seeing your primary doctor first. (Note: You can see some specialists directly without a referral, like the eye doctor or gynecologist.)

For example, before going to the foot doctor, I went to my médecin traitant who wrote me a prescription for a consultation at a foot doctor as well as custom-made orthotics. A prescription or referral is not a requirement. If I had gone directly to the foot doctor without seeing my médecin traitant first, I would still be reimbursed but at a lower rate.

Reimbursement rates are listed on the Ameli website.

Where to Submit Your Feuille de soins

You can either mail the form or drop it off to your local caisse. You can find the address for your local caisse on the Ameli website. Enter your postal code in the pop-up window.

If you live in Paris, here’s the mailing address:

Assurance Maladie de Paris
75948 PARIS CEDEX 19

You can send multiple feuilles de soins in the same envelope. Keep in mind that the weight limit for a regular stamp is about three pages, so if you’re sending more sheets than that, you’ll need to add more postage. If the reimbursements are for different people (different social security numbers), I would caution against sending them together in order to prevent any confusion.

➡️ PRO TIP: Before mailing your paperwork, make a photocopy or scan it for your own records. If you don’t have a printer/scanner at home, download the AdobeScan app, an essential phone app for life in France!

These forms can be sent by regular mail. Some people prefer to mail them by registered mail. Personally, I don’t want to spend the extra money on that service, so I keep a copy of all my sheets. Fortunately, I have not had any problems with my documents arriving to my caisse. However, one time, I had to send in a copy of a form because CPAM claimed that the original was unreadable. They accepted my photocopy though and they processed my reimbursement!


Did this guide help you? Say thanks with a cup of coffee!


Reimbursements

Reimbursements will be paid directly into the bank account that you supplied when you applied for health insurance. If you need to change your bank account details, you can do so on the Ameli website or by mail.

If you have an account with Ameli, you can track your reimbursements. You can also check the current processing times at your caisse. In your Ameli account, click “Mes Démarches” and then “Consulter les délais de traitement de ma CPAM.” Expect the reimbursement to take at least a week or two, but it could take a month or so, especially if you’re not yet set up in the system and don’t have an Ameli account.

⚠️ Beware of SMS text messages from Ameli asking you to fill out a form or click on a link in order to get your reimbursements. This is a common health insurance scam.

How to Fill Out a “Feuille de soins”
Tagged on:     

12 thoughts on “How to Fill Out a “Feuille de soins”

  • July 24, 2021 at 9:04 am
    Permalink

    I was traveling and got a Covid test and did not get the brown form when I got the receipt and test results. How do you get a “blank” form for situations like that? I see that the form pdf you link to has a great big “specimen” watermark on it.

    Reply
    • July 27, 2021 at 5:19 am
      Permalink

      Hi Arby,

      A feuille de soins is not something that you can download and fill out yourself. It has to be given to you by the doctor or pharmacist because they need to enter their contact information (including identification numbers) as well as the cost of the treatment or service. Their signature is also required at the bottom of the form.

      You can try to contact the place where you got the test and see if they will issue a feuille de soins after the fact. I’ve never done this so I’m not sure if that will work.

      Best,
      Ellen

      Reply
  • November 3, 2021 at 6:32 am
    Permalink

    hi,
    is it also possible to send the feuille de soins per email? for the reembursement?
    thanks for your reply.
    greetings, Luana

    Reply
    • November 3, 2021 at 7:49 am
      Permalink

      Hi Luana,
      Unfortunately, there is currently no way to submit the feuille de soins electronically. You can either mail it or drop it off to your local caisse.
      Best,
      Ellen

      Reply
  • December 2, 2021 at 10:57 am
    Permalink

    Hi Ellen, Thanks for this amazing post. As a broke student in Paris, when I had to pay upfront 53 euros for the covid test and was only given a random brown paper with no explanation, I thought I have lost money.

    Your post made it really clear.

    I just had two queries – 1) Can we courier or do we only need to post it? Anything specific we need to write on the envelope? 2) Do you suggest it is better to drop off directly at caisse? I am really scared of losing it. Dropping it off won’t take more than 1 hr for me as I live only 10 km away of caisse in Paris.

    Reply
    • December 3, 2021 at 9:37 am
      Permalink

      Hi!

      Thank you for your feedback and your questions.

      1) I send it by regular mail. Nothing specific on the envelope.
      2) I only ever mail them. Keep a scanned copy for your records!

      Best,
      Ellen

      Reply
  • April 4, 2022 at 7:17 am
    Permalink

    Thank you so much for this post. Lifesaver!

    Reply
    • April 5, 2022 at 5:33 pm
      Permalink

      Happy to help 🙂

      Reply
  • August 22, 2022 at 4:41 pm
    Permalink

    Hi is the Social security number the same as the number on the Carte Vitale? Thanks

    Reply
    • August 23, 2022 at 9:29 am
      Permalink

      Hi Luna,
      Yes, you can find your French social security number on your carte vitale, below your name. It starts with either a 1 for male or 2 for female. I hope that helps!
      Best,
      Ellen

      Reply
  • November 2, 2022 at 1:19 pm
    Permalink

    This is such a helpful resource! I’ve been putting off sending my documents in, as I was too intimidated to tell the provider I had no idea what they were talking about when they provided it to me. Thank you!

    Reply
    • November 2, 2022 at 3:15 pm
      Permalink

      So glad this resource cleared things up for you, Laura. Go get those reimbursements! 🙂

      Reply

Leave a Reply