The German Drama Llama: Vaccines Edition, Part II

Remember this post when I bemoaned the hoops this country was making me jump through to get shots/eventually discovered there was an easier way? Welcome to German Drama Llama Vaccines Edition: The Easier Way.

For those who don't feel like going back through the last post, my attempt to get vaccinated through the university wound up a hot mess, with me eventually discovering I needed to get a form signed by a million different people validating that my shots were a requirement to my studies while meanwhile a doctor talked my ear off about how much better it would be if I went to Switzerland instead of Mexico.  Eventually we learned that I could just go through a regular doctor and my badass health insurance would pay for it. To that I say, yay! To that the gods of German bureaucracy say, isn't this going to be hi-larious!

I made an appointment with a regular doctor and showed up today to finally get the shots ball rolling because rabies takes a while and I'm cutting it close. Only to find out that, oh hey, "we don't deal with the health insurance companies, that means you have to pay for these shots and then take the receipt to your insurance company who will then reimburse you."

Wait a minute, said I, that's how the private health system works, not the public one. And there's a reason I'm not on the private health system, namely that I can't afford to flip 500 euros out of my bank account for shots and then hang out for a month while the Bureaucracy Machine Of Angry Monster Death eventually churns out a refund. No no, said the lady, in the land of vaccines, even the most exhibitionist of public health insurance companies works like a private one. Al called my insurance people, and sure enough, that's how that works. It's a new system, they said. More efficient, they said. Really? The only thing more efficient than me endlessly ping-ponging back and forth between avenues of immunization would just be getting the goddamn disease. Somehow I imagine the health system moves a little quicker when you're flown back to Germany on the verge of death.

So, now I'm back to Plan A, also known as jumping through ten thousand hoops to get these vaccines through the university. Joy.

Will Tina ever get shots?

Stay tuned to find out!

(Although I wouldn't hold your breath.)

P.S. England blog post coming soon.