Question about getting healthcare through Kela

[Mansikoita]

Moi. I'm currently working on applying for residence in Finland based on having grandparents who were born there. I'm retired, so I'd be living off my U.S. social security and retirement savings.

If I understand correctly, the first residence permit you get is good for a year, and then you can renew it, and apply for permanent residence after four years, provided you've spent enough of that four years in Finland.

But apparently, as soon as you get that first residence permit, you can apply for Kela, and Kela decides whether *they* think your move to Finland is permanent. Here's what their website says:

If you move to Finland and you get a pension from a country other than an EU or EEA country, Switzerland or the United Kingdom, we will determine whether we consider that you are living in Finland permanently when you apply for a benefit. If we consider that your move to Finland is permanent, you can, as a rule, get benefits from Kela.

You can get benefits from Kela if we consider that you are living in Finland permanently. We consider each customer’s situation case by case.

When considering whether you live in Finland permanently, we check for instance the following:

length of stay in Finland
your family ties in Finland and elsewhere
employment in Finland or in other countries and the length of the employment
previous residence in Finland
permanent home in Finland or in another country.

What worries me is that I feel like I don't have anything to prove that I do intend to move to Finland permanently. My work history is all in the U.S. I've spent a grand total of three weeks in Finland forty years ago (though I'm planning a couple of visits in the next year while my application is being considered). I have a husband and a house in the U.S., and my husband doesn't want to go to Finland. Honestly, we're both pretty disengaged from the marriage. We live separate lives in the same house. But I feel like all the things they'd be looking at would count against me.

Has anyone gone through this? Does Kela actually turn people down? If you have to insure yourself privately in Finland, is the coverage at least better than it is in the U.S.? And if you're turned down at first, do they reexamine your case after a certain amount of time?

Kiitos etukäteen for any responses.

[Mansikoita]

Just to clarify: the only Kela benefit I really need is healthcare. Their website specifies that, as a retiree, you're not eligible for pension or disability benefits for your first three years, which is fine with me. I have enough to live on.

If anyone has experience with using private health insurance in Finland, I'd like to hear about it.

[actualbunnyvolunteer]

You get healthcare through your municipality of residence. When you arrive, register your municipality of residence to DVV immediately. You will get this if you have a residence permit granted for at least one year. Whatever is going on with your personal life doesn’t matter.

[Maaria]

The information you posted from Kela is referring to social security benefits. What you are looking for is medical care. Here is what Kela says about medical care:

If you have a municipality of residence in Finland, you are entitled to all the treatment you need in the public healthcare system. Your entitlement is not affected by your nationality or country of origin. You can apply to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency (dvv.fi) for a municipality of residence (i.e. to be officially registered as a resident of a municipality in Finland).

You can read the details here:

https://www.kela.fi/medical-care-entitlement-finland

[Mansikoita]

Kiitos teille molemmille! I guess I was imagining a problem where there wasn't one.

[betelgeuse]

If I understand correctly, the first residence permit you get is good for a year, and then you can renew it, and apply for permanent residence after four years, provided you've spent enough of that four years in Finland.

The government has already proposed to the parliament to increase the period from four to six years. In practice with your permit type, it wouldn't matter much.

https://intermin.fi/en/areas-of-experti ... ce-permits

The information you posted from Kela is referring to social security benefits. What you are looking for is medical care. Here is what Kela says about medical care:

The OP will want to also apply for benefits since discounted medicines are handled through Kela.

"Muusta kuin EU-lainsäädäntöä soveltavasta maasta Suomeen muuttavan henkilön Suomessa asumista arvioidaan ottaen huomioon se, mitä kotikuntalain (201/1994) 4 §:ssä säädetään ulkomailta tulleen henkilön kotikunnan ja asuinpaikan määräytymisestä."

You can see the questions they are interested in here https://www.kela.fi/benefit-forms/Y77e.pdf

Basically unless you indicate that you are going to be in Finland for a fixed period of time, they shouldn't have a reason to deny.

[Mansikoita]

The government has already proposed to the parliament to increase the period from four to six years. In practice with your permit type, it wouldn't matter much.

Kiitos tiedosta! So it wouldn't matter much because I could just keep renewing my residence permit until the extra two years pass, and my living circumstances wouldn't really change? I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying.

The OP will want to also apply for benefits since discounted medicines are handled through Kela.

So medications are not considered part of health care? That seems very strange to me. In the U.S., the same insurance policy that pays for doctor visits also pays for any medicines your doctor prescribes. Sometimes the whole cost, sometimes only a percentage. That is, unless your insurance plan sucks, and then you don't get any coverage for prescriptions at all.

Oh wait - it is different once you're over 65 and get on Medicare. Then you have to buy separate insurance to cover medications, and there are a thousand different plans you can choose from, with different levels of coverage for different drugs, and the plans change every year. It's an absurdly complicated system.

So in Finland, once I have a residence permit, I register with DVV. My residence card allows me to go to public doctors and hospitals and only pay a small client fee. And I register with Kela to get a percentage of my prescription costs paid for (with an initial deductible and an out-of-pocket maximum per year.) Do I have that right?

I found information about prescription coverage and client fees which was very helpful, in case anyone else is looking for this.

[Mansikoita]

Sorry, double-posted by accident. Can't figure out how to delete the whole post, so I just erased it.

[betelgeuse]

The government has already proposed to the parliament to increase the period from four to six years. In practice with your permit type, it wouldn't matter much.

Kiitos tiedosta! So it wouldn't matter much because I could just keep renewing my residence permit until the extra two years pass, and my living circumstances wouldn't really change? I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying.

Correct.

So in Finland, once I have a residence permit, I register with DVV. My residence card allows me to go to public doctors and hospitals and only pay a small client fee. And I register with Kela to get a percentage of my prescription costs paid for (with an initial deductible and an out-of-pocket maximum per year.) Do I have that right?

Basically. You won't use your residence permit card though. The easiest way to identify at visits is getting a foreigner's identity card from the police because it has the personal id code as a QR code. This you can use kiosks. You will need the card any way to setup strong online authentication.