How expat families in France manage medical records across the médecin traitant system, Carte Vitale, Mon espace santé, and private specialists. Keep your family's history portable.
France runs one of the most respected healthcare systems in Europe, anchored by the médecin traitant and the Carte Vitale. For expat families, the challenge is not access — it is continuity. Mon espace santé only holds records generated inside France, and access fades after you leave. PRIVAWELL gives expat families in France a portable vault that holds everything Mon espace santé does not.
Once you register with a médecin traitant, your French clinical activity flows into Mon espace santé (formerly the DMP). This national online health record holds prescriptions, lab results, hospitalisation summaries, and vaccination history. It is good infrastructure, but it has two real limits for expats: it only contains records generated inside France, and it requires an active Carte Vitale and France Connect account to access.
When an expat family arrives in France and registers with a new médecin traitant, the first appointment is essentially a blank slate. Foreign records — even high-quality ones from a Swiss Hausarzt or a UK consultant — are not accessible inside the French system. A structured, French-readable medical summary handed to the médecin traitant on day one shortens that onboarding from months of trial-and-error to a single useful consultation.
PRIVAWELL gives expat families in France a portable vault that holds everything Mon espace santé does not: your full pre-France history, records from non-conventionné specialists, paper carnet de santé scans, and clinical events from any country you've previously lived in. Generate a structured doctor-ready summary your médecin traitant can read in two minutes, in clinical English or translated to French. When the family eventually leaves France, the vault travels with you.
See also: medical records when moving abroad | expats in Switzerland | expats in Germany | expats in the UK | expats in the Netherlands | expats in the USA | family medical records checklist
Create Your Family VaultPRIVAWELL is a private family health record vault that helps internationally mobile families organise, store, and share medical records across countries. It is not a wellness tracker or fitness app.