I amsterdam - Family Doctors & Dentists

One must register with a family doctor (huisarts) upon arrival in the Netherlands, who is typically located within ten minutes of your home. To find a local huisarts you can try asking neighbours, friends, colleagues, or the nearest pharmacy (apotheek) for recommendations or request a list from your insurance company. You can look in the phone book under huisarts for listings near your postcode or you can search the website www.huisartsen.nl. Lastly, ACCESS provides a list of English-speaking doctors in your area.

The Right Match

When choosing a huisarts, make sure you feel comfortable with them, as changing a huisarts once registered is discouraged and rarely done. Further some huisarts may not be accepting any new patients as they are already filled to capacity. Finding a huisarts indeed requires a lot of footwork, but do not be discouraged and stop looking or leave it to later. They are necessary for all health matters, including prescriptions (even if you have one from home) and even calling in sick at work.

Setting Up Appointments

Huisarts have special slotted times for answering to their patients and these must be respected. You will have to ring the assistant to schedule in a consult (usually about 10 -15 minutes) or a telephone consult. Huisarts also provide walk-in consults, a reserved amount of time usually in the early morning, that operates on a first-come first serve basis for matters requiring quicker attention. When the doctor is not on-call, a telephone message provides numbers for emergency service from other doctors or institutions. Most huisartsen work from their offices, making house calls only out of dire necessity.

Specialists

If your huisarts can not diagnose or treat a problem you will be referred to a specialist. Usually you will receive a letter of referral to be given to the specialist, whom you in turn will call for an appointment. Expect to wait a couple weeks, unless the matter is urgent. Keep in mind you may also seek the opinion of a specialist though your huisarts may have not recommended it. Further, it is always your right to seek a second opinion. You can request a second opinion from any health care provider. You do not need the permission of any person or institution. It is advisable to tell your primary health care provider in order not to disturb the patient-care provider relationship.

Dentist (Tandarts)

Choosing a dentist in The Netherlands is very much like finding a doctor. You can ask neighbours for references, or look in the phone book under tandartsen. The website www.tandarts.nl also provides a list of dentists. As with doctors, people generally stay with the same tandarts, so you should choose carefully. For emergencies first check to see if your tandarts offers services outside of normal working hours. If not, their phone's recorded message should give the telephone number of another tandarts in your area on duty. Alternatively, you could call the following 020 686 1109 for the name of a local dentist on call (24 hours). Further, most insurances do cover basic dental care. However, for the highest quality of care it is recommended to find out if supplementary dental insurance is more beneficial.

Additional Resources

For more information on any of the above topics contact the ACCESS Amsterdam office:
Helpline: +31 020 423 3217
Email:info@access-nl.org
Website: www.access-nl.org

The ACCESS Guide to Health Care in the Netherlands is a book which helps you to navigate your way around the Dutch Health Care system and make it work for you. It can be purchased at:

The ACCESS Amsterdam
Herengracht 472, 2nd floor
1017 CA Amsterdam

or

American Book Center
Spui 12
1012 XA Amsterdam.

 

_{Updated 16 July 2007.}