Success getting the U.S. C.D.C card converted to the French health passport
 

Here is my experience getting the new health pass:

After having no luck yesterday getting a pharmacy to help with converting our CDC card into a French health passport, I decided to pop into another one today which had no customers and four available employees. This seemed like a good moment to see if they would be willing to help me.

At first she said that it wasn’t possible, but then I showed her page 22 of the Amelipro PDF (their portal to the healthcare system) which I had gotten from another site (link below) which I had printed out. She responded by saying that she had asked Ameli already and they had said it wasn’t possible. I then produced another page printed with the following “tips” (which I also got from another site) on how to enter a non-French resident into the system:

Astuce : au moment où le professionnel de santé vous demandera votre code postal, dites-lui de saisir « 99 » puis de sélectionner Etats-Unis dans la liste des pays. Il lui faudra sélectionner la rubrique « Autres lots » dans le menu déroulant au moment de saisir vos numéros de lot. En moins de 5 minutes, il sera capable d’imprimer une feuille avec le QR Code.

She took this page, our passports and our CDC cards and disappeared to the back. Five minutes later, she came back with our printed barcodes, saying she didn’t know why Ameli said it couldn’t be done. Of course, we thanked her profusely and bought some things as well!

So the key points are: 1) if you go to a pharmacy, make sure it’s one that does vaccinations, so that they will have access to the Ameli system; 2) try to go when they aren’t busy (the last thing anyone wants is to interfere with people in the process of giving vaccinations); 3) have a printed sheet with the tips above ready to give them (you can just copy and paste the paragraph above); and 4) keep trying until you get somebody who’s willing to help!

If you’re in the area, we got this done at the pharmacy connected to the Carrefour in St-Cyprien, Dordogne. Hopefully there will be a less chaotic process put into place by August 1, but in the meantime, this may be worth a try.

Here is the link to the AmeliPro PDF referenced above: https://uspo.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-vaccin-covid-amelipro.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1h9DKwC6_LA4ggzKJHC2i0k7gI 5PFb9RbLGXIGkhAfUkhKD4kOrTyT1pw

Great to know. I am guessing that a prerequisite is an ability to communicate in French.

My French is not that great, so I just typed everything I wanted to say into a translation program and printed it so I could hand it to them. I could have stumbled through it, but it was a less stressful way to start the process, and at that point she seemed willing to suffer through my intermediate French 😉.

Actually, EVERY pharmacy has access to the Ameli system or they would not be able to fill prescriptions.

That’s great info, thanks!

Great! Glad you were successful. & thank you for posting. I will be in Paris in September and sure hope al this is straightened out by then. Right now it seems so hit or miss.

Thank you, Russ. I had my hopes up a week or so ago when two Americans successfully had the pass sanitaire made up for them in Paris, which was followed up the next day by many people saying this had encouraged them to try their luck at various pharmacies in Paris, but none would do it. Ditto for an American in France using her usual local pharmacy in a small city who said it couldn't be done.

Your specific instructions have me convinced it can be done, though we won't try at a small-town pharmacy but will go to E Leclerc.

Of course things could be much better or much worse by departure in September. We're thinking positively. I don't want to miss this period of anticipation, so even if it turns out we can't go, I'll at least have had all this summer imagining I'm in France.

Thanks so much for posting your experience, russ-in-LA!

Ok, thanks, sure hope this is better by Nov. Russ, do you think we will have trouble going by train to Belgium? We are two nights in Paris and then off to Brussels and other towns.

Wow, Russ! Thank you so much for posting the information and your experience! Much appreciated!

Bookmarking for an upcoming trip, thank you so much!

The health pass is required for train travel, but I can’t imagine they won’t have an easier process in place in the coming weeks. Also, the covid situation is rapidly evolving, so movement could be more (or less) restricted by then.

Thank You Russ. I think it is changing daily and we have so much COVID in fl it is scary.

Thank you, Russ. Bookmarking for my trip Sept/Oct however it will probably change 100 times between now and then - hopefully for the better!

Ellen

Russ, thank you for sharing. I am leaving for Italy on Aug 17th and they are going to be implementing something similar for museums, etc. starting Aug 6th. I can't find anything yet online what the protocol will be for non-EU citizens. For entry into the EU, I keep reading that the CDC card for Americans is accepted as an alternative, although it says that that is only the case for now through July 30th. Don't know what if anything might change there next week. As for museum entrance, etc. I guess I'll just have to keep checking online to see how the Italians decide to implement this not only for their citizens but for their guests as well.

are the tips on page 22 of the document ? my french is not that good

Very useful.
We fly on Sept 27, so I am hoping this will all be sorted by then. However, as one poster noted, the case counts could be higher by then and the restrictions far more onerous.
I actually planned this trip to avoid summer crowds but also to avoid the autumnal drop in Provence temperatures that moves people indoors and might boost the case count. Little did I know....!

If you were to go to YouTube, you could watch a dude called Jay Swanson tell you how he converted his CDC vaccination card into a Pass Sanitaire.

Thin,aristocrat 🦌

Friend tried this at pharmacy in Lille and they refused, but today was able to get the pass/bar code at a pharmacy in Paris

These are the tips. Just copy and paste

Astuce : au moment où le professionnel de santé vous demandera votre code postal, dites-lui de saisir « 99 » puis de sélectionner Etats-Unis dans la liste des pays. Il lui faudra sélectionner la rubrique « Autres lots » dans le menu déroulant au moment de saisir vos numéros de lot. En moins de 5 minutes, il sera capable d’imprimer une feuille avec le QR Code.

Its just telling them how to choose a non-French country and enter in the vaccine lot numbers.