Final edit 27 February: “Happy ending” 🙂 – I found an HNO doctor who unlike the first one I went to is competent and friendly, and unlike the second one I went to has friendly receptionists who do not lie about what my insurance company wants and does not want. Ear infection, or whatever it was, is now gone. Dr. S. Schölzel, Bergmannstraße 5. Highly recommended.

We now have to bring our “Anmeldebestätigung” along when seeing a new doctor for the first time. Despite having lived here eight years and seen many doctors and one hospital, I have never been asked for that one before.

After having been treated for an ear infection unsuccessfully by one ear doctor and three different kinds of eardrops for a couple of months, I wanted to get a second opinion from another ear doctor and made an appointment with Herr Dr. med. Christian Scheiber in Leipziger Straße.

Having arrived there and filled in the usual two-three pages of blabla (that German IT angst again) and presented my passport and insurance card, I was asked to produce my “Anmeldebestätigung” and if I did not have it with me – go back home to fetch it. At some point, they even claimed that my insurance company demands it. (?????). That is a blatant lie. I am privately insured with JSIS – the sickness insurance for current and former European Union employees and have been since 1976. I think I would have known by now if that were the case. I even offered to pay the bill in cash then and there if necessary – but no, not good enough.

Due to gail-force wind gusts (accompanied by rain), I had already been almost blown off the pavement three times on the way there, so I was not about to make an extra return walk under those conditions. And – in a country whose motto seems to be “why make things easy if you can make them complicated?” – how could I be certain that when I got back there they would not lie about something else. Once a liar, alway a liar. I therefore left, telling them I would not be back and that they should just send me the invoice.

I am sure my “alleged” address is good enough for billing me, even if not good enough for treating my ear infection.