Is there a road map to the healthcare system in NL for immigrants?
We'll be moving over to the Netherlands within a few weeks (have job, have temporary housing, have bank account, etc.) but the NL Healthcare system leaves me a little confused reading about it.
I'm coming from the US for reference. Here you see a general practicioner once a year or so or just when you're feeling a little ill. If you're majorly sick, you go to the emergency room. If you're a little sick and it's after hours, you go to an urgent care. With some insurance plans you don't even need a referral to see a specialist.
What I understand about reading about the system in the Netherlands is everything happens through your general practicioner (thuisarts). Feel sick? You see them. Feel really sick? You see them and they refer you to the ER. Break a leg? You call them and they refer you to the ER. Do I have that right?
Also I read that you have to have a thuisarts that's within a 15 minute drive of you. So if I live in Den Haag but like a doctor in Amsterdam better, I still can't see them. Do I have that correct?
If you injure yourself in someway related to your job, however, you don't see a thuisarts, you instead see a bedrijfsarts, yes?
It's just very confusing because you'll be reading a thread and someone will say they did something, got an unsatisfactory result, and someone else will respond with like, well why on earth did you do that and not contact your (thuisart/physical therapist/bedrijfsarts) first?
So how do you know what to do first? Is there a flow chart somewhere? Especially in regards to urgent care or emergency situations because you don't always have time to consult the internet to know what to do first in that kind of situation.
