Ameli & CPAM letters: carte Vitale, attestation, and refund delays
A guide to the letters Ameli and your CPAM send — what each one is, how to verify it, and how to chase a missing refund.
Ameli is the online portal of the Assurance Maladie — France's public health insurance. Your CPAM (Caisse primaire d'assurance maladie) is the regional office that processes your claims. Both send letters. Most are routine confirmations, a few demand a reply, and one or two cause expat panic when they arrive in dense French. Here's the survival kit.
How CPAM identifies you
Every letter from CPAM carries your numéro de sécurité sociale (13 digits + 2-digit clé) and the name of your caisse. If either is wrong, the letter is misaddressed. Check before doing anything else; CPAMs occasionally cross databases between départements and you may receive a letter intended for someone with a similar number.
The letters you're most likely to see
Carte Vitale issues
Three kinds of carte Vitale letter: the initial 'voici votre carte' that arrives 2-3 months after you're entered into the system, a 'mise à jour' reminder if you haven't updated yours at a pharmacy in a year, and a 'duplicata' notification when you've requested a replacement. Lost card replacements take 3 weeks; the attestation de droits prints as a paper substitute in the meantime.
Refund delays
Most refunds (consultations, drugs) hit your bank account within 5 working days of the carte Vitale tap at the pharmacist or doctor. If it's been longer than 10 working days, something's stuck. Common causes: a missing or out-of-date RIB on your Ameli account, an ALD code that requires manual processing, or a mutuelle that's mid-renewal and broke the noemie link.
- Open your Ameli account → 'Mes paiements' to see whether the claim has been registered at all.
- If it's registered but unpaid, check your RIB under 'Mes informations'. Pre-fill bank changes don't auto-apply if your name format doesn't match exactly.
- If it's not registered, the carte Vitale tap may have failed silently. Ask the doctor or pharmacist for a paper feuille de soins and post it to your CPAM (address on any past letter, or use the 3646 hotline).
When in doubt
Ameli's portal is one of the better-designed French admin surfaces, but the letters still use abbreviations (IJ, ALD, ATI, IPP, ATMP) that are opaque without a glossary. Photograph the letter into Mes Papiers — we expand the acronyms, surface the deadline, and tell you whether to act, wait, or escalate.