Failing to show EHIC at foreign European hospital

Question

This question was just raised among my friends who are having a similar accident. I will subjectivize the question for generality.

I am an European citizen. I am traveling in Europe, but unfortunately I left my EHIC card home. In my country, hospitals prefer to identify me by EHIC, but if I fail to show them they can compute my Social Security Number tax code to input it manually, as the EHIC card works as SSN card too.

Now I am in another European country, I have all my documents with me (local ID and passport as well), but forgot my EHIC/SSN card. I need to go hospital and will fail to show EHIC.

How do I fix this situation?

Will the hospital require me to pay a large bill? I can already prove I am an EU citizen and it is possible to get my EHIC information from my identity, so I hope the hospital in the hosting country will settle with my local National Healthcare, and eventually my NHS will send me a small bill according to my regulation.

In the specific: the patient is a Latvian traveling in Italy.

Answer 1

It's sometimes possible to get the hospital to confirm that you are covered through some national contact point and to have the relevant institution back in your country of residence (the NHS trust in that case?) fax a written confirmation. But a friend of mine in a similar situation did have had to pay bills upfront and claim the money later.

So the conclusion seems to be that your mileage may vary and the exact combination of countries and healthcare providers may matter. Do ask if they can somehow get a confirmation that you are in fact properly covered by the system. Some useful contact numbers are available through the official app.

Importantly, coverage is based on residency and/or affiliation to some specific healthcare system, citizenship does not matter as such. Similarly, the fees (including things like copays) depend on the country where you are getting care and not on your country of citizenship or residence.